Technology of Education Journal
Year:2012 | Volume:7 | Issue:1|Papers Count:11

Considering that the teacher is important and the most important factor in the development of an effective qualitative education system, the present research has assessed methods of elementary school teacher's selection. In this research, the quantitative and qualitative methods of study have been utilized. The statistical population of this research includes the principals of elementary schools, experts, and teachers of teacher training center of Qom in the educational year of 2008-2009. In order to select the principals, classified sampling method was used in congruency with the size and purposeful sampling method was used to determine the experts' sample. In this regard 162 principals', 20 experts and members of the faculty's view analyzed who had a great research background. The validity of the questionnaire and the interview has been confirmed by some of the professors and PhD and M.A students. The reliability of the questionnaire has been estimated as 0.91, using Cronbach alpha. In order to analyze the results descriptively and analytically, the SPSS software was used, and the interview analysis was done through the categorization method. The results show that the subject's physical, emotional and scientific capabilities, improvement of the teacher's selection, using native forces must be taken into consideration. In this regard, using the experience of developed countries (paying attention to cultural differences) in teacher selection programs were underlined to make the reviewing, amending and developing possible. Finally, some recommendations were suggested to improve the selection of the elementary teachers.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of teaching students through mobile phone on students' motivation and their attitudes towards learning English. The population included 521 students of Birjand University, who were studying general English in the academic year 1389-90. 76 students were selected from the aforementioned statistic population using available sampling method. A group of 38 was selected randomly as the control group, who were then trained for two months through mobile phone. In this research, Gardner's motivation and attitude questionnaires was used to evaluate the students' attitude and motivation towards English. Gardner has cited a high reliability and validity for the above questionnaire. This questionnaire has been used in studies inside Iran and its validity and reliability have been confirmed. In the end, the comparison of the two groups' average showed that teaching through mobile phone has had a positive impact on students' motivation, interest, and their attitudes towards English, integration orientation, and tendency toward English learning. The results also showed that teaching through mobile phone has not had a meaningful effect on instrumental orientation and the attitudes towards English speaking people, compared with the control group.

Maintaining students' academic motivation and satisfaction influence their academic achievement. The main purpose of the study is to determine the effects of blended learning on students' academic motivation and satisfaction. This is a quasi-experimental study and a total of 34 psychology juniors at Tehran Payame-Noor University, who had enrolled in the "Psychopathology 1" course for the first time, were selected as the sample group. Eighteen students participated in the blended learning program and sixteen students participated in the lecture-based program. Classes were randomly divided into the intervention and control groups. Students' motivation was measured by the short form of Mc Inerney and Sinclaire school motivation questionnaire (1372) and their satisfaction was determined by direct multiple choice questions after instructional programs. The same questions were used for both groups in pre-test and post-test stages. Statistical analysis was done by Mann-Whitney test, Wilcoxon test and t-test. It was shown that in comparison to lecture-based instruction, blended learning increased students’ academic motivation (p<0.001) and satisfaction (p<0.001).

This research tries to evaluate the electronic contents of "General Farsi" course consistent with Mayer multimedia design principles. The population of the research includes electronic contents of "General Farsi" course in electronic learning of Khajeh-Nassir Tousi University. The data gathering tools consisted of a researcher-made checklist using five-point Liker scale with a 96 percent content validity and reliability. The results of the study indicate that the extent of consistency of the contents with the Temporal Contiguity and Redundancy Principles was optimal while it was semi-optimal when Multimedia, Spatial Contiguity, Coherence and Modality Principles were taken into account and finally it was regarded suboptimal in relation to Individual Differences Principle.

The present study attempted to investigate the effective factors in applying descriptive evaluation from Ardebil elementary schools second and third grade teachers' point of view.  The method was descriptive-correctional. The research population included 700 primary schools' second and third grade teachers (260 teachers from the first district and 240 teachers from the second district). From this number, 300 teachers (150 male and 150 female) were randomly selected by cluster sampling. The data were collected through researcher–made questionnaires. The formal validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by the specialists in the field and the reliability was calculated by K–Alfa (0.91). The data were analyzed by descriptive–inferential statistics methods (factor analysis). The result of the factor analysis indicated that 5 factors were significant from the point of view of teachers. From these 5 factors, psychological factors justified the highest percentage of the whole variance (21%). The other 4 factors had the following percentage of justification of variance, respectively: managerial factor (19%), educational (17%), procedural (7%), and individual factors(4%).

This investigation studies teaching via problem solving with emphasis on Scheonfeld's problem solving theory. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of training via problem solving based on Schoenfeld's mathematical problem solving theory on improving the student's beliefs in problem solving and increasing the group's activities and student's mathematical problem solving skills. This research has been studied at high school level with two randomly chosen groups of subject one control and one experimental group. The experimental group's teacher had been trained in a period of mathematical problem solving based on Schoenfeld's theory and the control group's teacher had not received any instruction. Pre and post-test was used to measure the progress of students in problem solving. A questionnaire was used to measure their beliefs and group activity before and after the training. The results of a t-test show significant differences between teaching via problem solving based on Schoenfeld's theory and student's group activity (t=3.595, p<0.01) and problem solving ability (t=3.567, p<0.05). The analysis of u test shows there were significant relationships between teaching via problem solving based on Schoenfeld's theory and student's  beliefs (z=-4.349, p<0.01).

This study aimed to identify the status of entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial training needs assessment of Humanities. Two types of questionnaires were designed and distributed among 97 students and 36 professors in order to collect the information. Results showed that almost all students and professors of Humanities believe that entrepreneurship educations leave much to be desired. In fact, materials, content and teaching methods are not appropriate to convey the concepts of entrepreneurship and business to students. Professors of Humanities also believe that incorporating concepts such as fundamentals of business, business planning, communications, organization and management, legal and commercial regulations, accounting, financial management, e-business, launching a business, marketing, strategic management, international business, and entrepreneurial skills as an academic training courses in the syllabus is key to improve the students' entrepreneurial knowledge and skills.