Year:2007 | Volume:25 | Issue:4 (49)|Papers Count:12

This study investigates the new plan of selection of school principals. The research questions are about desirability, weaknesses, strengths and the most important solutions to improve the plan. This research uses a descriptive analytical method. The statistical population includes all high school principals and teachers of Shahrekord and the research sample includes 74 school principals and 187 teachers. The measuring instrument consisted of a questionnaire the researcher made which involves 54 close - ended questions with the reliability of 92% and 4 open questions and an interview with 4 open questions. Descriptive statistical methods have been used to analyze the data of the questionnaire, and categorization method has been applied to analyze the open questions and the interview.The results showed that the desirability of the plan from the view point of school principals is in the medium level and from the view point of teachers is more than the medium level; the plan’s weaknesses from the view points of school principals and teachers are less than the medium level and plan’s strengths from the view points of school principals and teachers are more than the medium level. The results showed that there are no differences between school principals and teachers views regarding plan’s desirability, weaknesses and strengths; but with regard to their field of study it differs. There are no differences between the teacher's views with regard to the gender, educational degree, and previous records, but it differs with regard to the place of working. School principals and teachers refer to the cases such as more supervision of Educational organization in determining the candidate competence at first, and not interfering and respect to teacher’s opinion at the end, giving the right of voting to the parents' and teachers' council, student council and the deputy of the Education organization to selection of school principals in order to improve the plan.

The goal of present study was to determine prediction power of aspects of identity on student's goal orientations. Participants were 404 boys and girls selected from pre-university centers of Shiraz and Yasuj cities. The measures of study were a new version of Aspects of Identity Questionnaire (AIQ-IIIx) and Goal Orientation Inventory (GOI). To determine validity of measures, factor analysis method was used. Cronbach Alpha coefficient was calculated in order for testing reliability of questionnaires. By using simultaneous multiple regression method, predictive power of aspects of identity for different types of goal orientation was calculated. Results showed that social identity was positive and collective identity was negative predictor of validation seeking goal orientation. In growth seeking goal orientation only the predictor variable was collective identity and for failure avoidance, social identity positively and personal identity negatively predicted this type of goal orientation. This finding provides new evidence for a relationship between identity and motivation. Implication and directions for further research are also discussed.

The aim of this research was to study the effects of different approaches of teaching creativity on the development of research tendency in teenagers. To achieve this aim, 75 students studying in second and third grades of guidance school with average achievement in Shiraz were selected as the sample. They took part in the first half of the CORNELL creativity test of level X as the pretest. Then, they were divided into three equal groups of control, teaching and research. The teaching and research groups were instructed in educational philosophy for four months, the second group in the ordinary way and the third group in the research way. Then, the three groups took part in the second half of the same test. The results showed that teaching philosophy to children would be helpful and effective in promoting their creativity and reasoning skills. The results also indicated that if the same program was implemented in research it would be more effective in preparing the students for doing research. On the whole, the results proved the reliability and validity of teaching philosophy as an effective instrument for developing creativity.

The purpose of the present study was to examine if there is any relationship between goal orientation and self-regulated learning and academic achievement among college oriented high school students (both males & females) in Shiraz. More specifically the purpose of this study was to answer the following questions:To what extent each kind of goal orientations (Mastery, Performance and Avoidance) predicts self-regulated learning and academic achievement among students. To this end, a clustered multistage random sample of 311 students (150 Males, 161 Females) was selected and implemented the following scales: Bouffard’s (1998) Academic Goal Orientation Questionnaire (A. G. O. Q) and Pintrich & De Groot’s (1990) Self- Regulated Learning Questionnaire (S. R. L. Q). Alpha coefficients for determining the reliability of each variable were as follows:Mastery (a=0 /83), Performance (a=0 /72), Avoidance (a=0 /85).The gathered data were analyzed through Multiple Regression (Method of Enter) and the following were found:a) Mastery goal orientation was significantly positive correlated with self-regulated learning and academic achievement of all the samples with regard to sexes. It was found that mastery goal orientation had a significantly positive correlation with all dependent variables for females whereas for the male counterparts the only non-significant dependent variable was found to be academic achievement.b) Performance goal orientation could predict academic achievement significantly positive for both genders and in other areas, the results were found to be non-significant or significantly negative correlation. c) Avoidance goal orientation in the most aspects had a significantly negative correlation and in some other areas non- significant correlation.

The purpose of present study was to investigate causal model of personality traits, motivational orientation and learning strategies. In this study 270 guidance school students were selected by cluster random sampling. The big five factor questionnaire, school motivation questionnaire (SMQ), and a part of self regulation strategies (MSLQ) were used for gathering information. The validity and reliability of the instruments estimated by factor analysis and chronbach alpha coefficient, respectively.The path analysis was employed to test the model. The results showed that among five factors, conscientiousness had direct effect on learning strategies (0.12). Also this factor has an indirect effect on learning strategies (0.16) through the way of learning orientation. The results also showed that there were direct effects for learning orientation (0.56) and performance orientation (0.14) on learning strategies. The total effects of conscientiousness on learning strategies were estimated 0.31. The results supported that motivational orientation role is a mediator between personality traits and learning strategies.

The aim of this study was to compare the attachment of adolescents to mother, father, and peers. The sample of this study included 198 girls and 203 boys between 12 to 15 years old. All the participants filled out the Attachment Scale. This scale includes three factors: attachment to mother, attachment to father, and attachment to peers. The test-retest reliability for this scale was 0.75. The results of this study revealed that there are significant differences between boys and girls in attachment to mother, father, and peers. Also the results showed that there are significant differences among different age group in different sources of attachment. These finding revealed that age and attachment to peers have significant relationship with one another.

The experience of past years shows that educational affairs (Omur-e tarbiati) have not been successful. According to most of the specialists, experts and researchers, the cause of this lack of success is due to the lack of theoretical explanation and shortage of suitable models and also, lack of vivid programs related to the foundations of educational affairs. Therefore, this study wants to infer a model from Islamic mysticism in order to direct and organize the educational affairs. The questions of this study are:1) Is it possible that Islamic mysticism be the essence of constructing a model for educational affairs (omur-e tarbiati)?2) If the answer is yes, which elements and relations construct the model?The results of this study suggest that there are some similarities between Islamic mysticism and education. So, constructing a mystical model for omur-e tarbiati is possible. On the other hand, emotional education with the focus on love, morality and art (aesthetics) education and self- awareness are the main elements of the suggested model.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of Aggression Questionnaire (AQ; Buss &Perry, 1992). For this purpose, two hundred and nine Shiraz university students were selected randomly. All of the subjects completed aggression questionnaire and the general psychopathology questionnaire (scale-25). The reliability of this questionnaire was estimated using different methods: Cornbach alpha, test- retests and Spearman-Brown's split half, with the correlations of 0.89, 0.87 and 0.73 respectively. Correlation analysis revealed that subscales were significantly correlated which were ranged between 0.37 and 0.78. The concurrent validity of the questionnaire estimated by general psychopathology (scale-25) was 0.34 (p</01). Factor analysis of the Aggression Questionnaire, using varimax rotation, revealed 4 factors named, hostility, physical aggression, verbal aggression and anger and these factors estimated over the %46 of the total variance. With relation to sex differences, men earned higher scores on hostility, physical aggression, verbal aggression but not anger. The Persian version of Aggression Questionnaire therefore can be used in laboratory research and therapeutic situations.

This study aims to identify the educational deprivation of children in Iran and to examine the factors affecting the deprivation at both individual and household levels. At individual level, the effects of socio-demographic characteristics of the family and other factors on the educational situation of children aged 17-30 years are examined. At household level, the effects of household-related factors on the number of children deprived from education in the household are investigated. Using data from a survey of social and economic characteristics of households, carried out by Iran Statistical Centre in 2001, the research method in this study is based on secondary data analysis.Finding show household size and the number of children in the family, among different demographic factors related to the family, have the most important effects on children's education. Of socio-economic factors, household place of residence, the level of the head of household's education, the household expenditure on cultural services and the quality of the household housing affect children's chance in enjoying higher levels of education. In addition, marital status of the head affects the probability of the existence of a deprived child in the family. The mother's behavior toward the child, compared to that of the father, shows to be more influential on children's educational performance and levels of education.

This research examined the effects of on-campus residence versus commuter status on female and male Shiraz college students' academic performance, vocational commitment, self-efficacy, and perceptions of the college environment. The study sought to extend previous work examining the effects of college residence on student adjustment and academic performance by testing these effects with a national population that has received relatively little attention in the extant college student literature. We found positive effects of residential living on student adjustment and performance that were mediated by gender. Residential living had the greatest positive effects for women in the study. Specifically, female students living on campus demonstrated better vocational commitment, and better academic performance, than either commuter females or commuter males. Interestingly, regardless of these positive effects, females living on campus actually had poorer perceptions of the college environment than other students. By comparison, residence did not appear to have any significant effects at all on male students, vocational commitment, academic performance, or perception of the environment. Finally, although residence made no significance difference in female students, self-efficacy, males living on campus demonstrated greater self-efficacy than commuter males. Implications of these findings for college student development theory and higher education practice, and limitations of the study, are discussed.

Cognitive theories suggest that information processing biases play a central role in the development and maintenance of emotional disorders. The purpose of this study was to investigate the presence of explicit and implicit memory biases for emotional information in subclinically depressed (N=20) and normal controls (N=20) individuals. Participants were students at the University of Arak and were selected according to their scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI, 1978) and General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg and Hiller, 1979). Four types of word (depression related, social threat related, positive and neutral words) were used in the explicit and implicit memory tasks. Explicit memory was assessed with a free recall and implicit memory with a word- stem completion task. Results of Repeated Measure Analysis of Variance showed that the depressed group showed a mood congruent memory bias at free recall. The results of this study failed to show the existence of a mood congruent memory bias for implicit memory in depressed individuals. The theoretical implications of these findings were discussed.

This paper aims to analyze the necessity of revision and flexibility in the school calendar focusing on topics including length and time of holidays, and the distribution of class hours among hours of the day and days of the week.The research method is descriptive-analytical and the statistical population members are the teachers, principals and educational experts of Esfahan and Yazd.Applying the multi level random sampling method, 180 teachers and applying the simple random sampling method 35 principals were chosen. The sampled teachers were given questionnaires to collect data. A Semi structured interview was used to collect qualitative data from the sampled educational experts (16 individuals). The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and the qualitative data were analyzed using categorization.Findings show that considering the existence of different conditions in different parts of the country especially climate, also different academic, social and economical conditions, flexibility in the starting and ending time of the academic year and school hours in necessary. Lessening the number of public holidays during the academic year and summer holidays, and a better distribution of school days and holidays among the weekly swchedule and the academic year are of the changes that can lead to a better academic system.