JOURNAL OF NEW APPROACH IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Year:2012 | Volume:3 | Issue:3 (11)|Papers Count:10

This study with a sociological interpretation approach set out with the aim of taking researchers’ viewpoint on the challenges in relation to commercialization of research in Educational Administration. The qualitative research methodology was adopted and the ethnographical approach, specifically, was used in the course of study. Participatory observation and open and deep interviewing techniques together with triangulation techniques were used to gather the data. Using theoretical saturation index, nine researchers in the field of Educational Administration participated in the study. The participants were interviewed and their attitudes and perspectives on challenges in relation to commercialization and its dimensions and various aspects were studied. To analyze data and concluding the research findings, “Grounded theory” was used. In the present study, testing hypotheses was not exercised. Rather, the study came up with the theory on a limited basis. The main findings of this study included categories such as Scientific disability, Policy, Researcher’s uninterestedness, Negligence, Research structure, and categories which can be categorized under the category of “Scientific disability “. In other words Scientific disability in this Grounded theory is the “Core Category”. Using these categories, a paradigmatic model was presented.

The present study aims at investigating the correlation and the explanatory ratio between educational philosophies and supervising beliefs among Tehran’s school administrators. Accordingly, a sample of governmental school administrator with the population of 327 persons from 3 stages of primary school, secondary school, and high school were selected for the study. A use was made of descriptive correlative research method. In order to gather the data of the two scales, we benefited from Patricia’s “Educational Philosophy” (1972) and Glickman and Tamashiro’s “Estimation of Administrator’s Supervisory Beliefs” (1981). In analyzing the data, besides benefiting from average, standard deviation and various charts and tables, we also used Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis with various variables. The findings revealed that there existed a meaningful relation between various administrators’ educational philosophies, progressivism, perenniadism, existentialism, essentionalism and the direct, indirect and associative aspects of supervisory beliefs among administrators. Additionally, the result regarding the amount of ratio of each of the educational philosophies (progressivism, perenniadism, essentionalism and existentialism) respectively came with the following variation of supervisory beliefs: 35.3%, 40.2%, and 36.3%.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a ‘peace education program’ in training global citizens. The study followed a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control-group design. The population of the study included all male high school students of Rasht city (N=6932) in the academic year 2010-2011. From this population, two groups of 30 (one experimental and one control) were selected through cluster random sampling method. A use was made of a 20-item-researcher-made questionnaire after it was validated with a reliability index of 0.82. The instrument was administered to the experimental group during before and after treatment. Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential (ANCOVA) statistics. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the posttest scores of the control and experimental groups. Thus, it was concluded that the peace education program could enhance global citizens’ training, increase the trainees’ knowledge and competency, and cultivate their global citizenship attitude.

The overall purpose of this research was to study the feasibility of managing performances at Shiraz University’s educational departments, based on the views of educational managers of Shiraz University. This study was a descriptive survey. The research population involved educational managers, principals, and assistants at Shiraz University’s faculties and educational departments (n=84). The participants were chosen through convenience sampling. Data were collected through a questionnaire (developed by the present researchers) with two dimensions: advantage and applicability of managing performance at university. After establishing the reliability and validity of the questionnaire, it was distributed among the participants. Of the study population, 58 usable questionnaires were returned. Data were analyzed using inferential statistics. The results showed that managers evaluated the advantage of managing performance in Shiraz University to be below the desired level of adequacy (Q3), and to be at an acceptable adequacy level (Q2). Similarly, they found the applicability of managing performance at Shiraz University to be lower than the acceptable adequacy level (Q2). However, the advantage of using managing performance and its dimensions at university was assessed to be higher than the average of its applicability at the university. Interaction of academic rank and educational department had no meaningful impacts on managers’ viewpoint regarding the advantage and applicability of managing performances.

The main goal of this study was to determine the relationship between learning organization and organizational intelligence in the education organization and schools of Rafsanjan city. In this research, a descriptive-correlational approach was employed. The study population involved all the educational staff and teachers in Rafsanjan city including 2494 people during the academic year 2010-2011. 33 participants were selected through cluster sampling. For collecting research data the learning organization questionnaire and the organizational intelligence questionnaire were used as measurement instruments. In data analysis, at the descriptive level of statistics, mean, standard deviation, frequency, and distribution tables, were used and Pearson correlation test, stepwise regression, single-group t-test and correlation matrix were used for inferential analysis. The Results showed that coefficient correlation between learning organization and organizational intelligence was (r=0.72) (P<0.0001) which was statistically significant.

This study attempted to investigate the alignment between Iran’s B.A. official curriculum standards, M.A. state university entrance exams of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and SAMT (The Organization for Researching and Composing University Textbooks in the Humanities) official textbooks. The official standards, exam questions and activities in the textbooks were content analyzed using a checklist developed by the researchers based on Anderson and Krathwohl’s taxonomy of educational objectives. After specifying the cognitive processes and types of knowledge using a two dimensional taxonomy, they were converted into separate matrices and porter’s alignment index was calculated to determine the extent to which standards, assessments and textbooks are aligned. The results of this study, most importantly, indicated that in all the components lower-order thinking skills with the frequency 83.5% were more frequently represented than higher-order processes which involved only 16.3% of the objectives. Moreover, the alignment index indicated a low level of balanc between the curriculum components; whereas, there was a higher level of balance between standards and assessments.

This study aimed to determine the relationship between the components of emotional intelligence and organizational development among the staffs of Shabestar Islamic Azad University. A descriptive – correlational method was used in the current study. The statistical population of the study included 160 people; therefore, according to Krejcie and Morgan’s Table of sampling adequacy, 113 people were selected using stratified random sampling. Data were gathered using two instruments: the standard questionnaire of Bar-On emotional intelligence and a researcher-made questionnaire on organizational development. Validity and reliability of organizational development questionnaire was established through face validity and Cronbach’s alpha-coefficient, respectively. The obtained data were examined by the use of Spearman correlation coefficient, Man-Whitney U-test, and Friedman test. The results depicted a meaningful correlation between the components of stress tolerance and realism with organizational development. Further, it was revealed that the rank of emotional intelligence and organizational development components is the same among male and female staffs. As regards the components of emotional intelligence, it was shown that accountability component has the highest priority and independence component has the lowest priority between both sexes. Another finding of the present study was that the component of openness and transparency has the highest priority among the components of organizational development.

The main goal of the present research was to investigate factors related to learning success of medical and engineering students. In this regard, two factors, i.e. learning styles and hemispheric dominance of male and female students in these two majors were studied. The study had a comparative nature; for that reason, one hundred and seventy eight medical and engineering students of Shiraz University and Shiraz School of Medical Sciences studying in the first semester of 1388-1389 were compared with each other regarding their learning styles and hemispheric dominances. In this study, cluster sampling was employed to select the participants; then, the selected students completed two standard questionnaires, that is, Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory (1985a) and Silber’s Hemispheric Dominance questionnaire. Statistical analyses (descriptive statistics, t-test, and chi-square) were performed using SPSS software (17th version). Findings of the current study indicate that medical and engineering students are different from each other regarding their methods in perceiving and processing information. With regard to findings of learning styles, it was revealed that medical students mostly used divergent learning style while engineering students were more inclined to employ convergent learning style. Moreover, male and female students were compared regarding their learning styles. This indicated that females utilized concrete experimentation more than males. As regards brain hemispheric dominance, it was observed that most students in the two majors employed both hemispheres of their brains in perceiving and processing information. Besides, the results depicted an association among students’ learning style, hemispheric dominance, gender, and field of study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate high school administrators’ and teachers’ views of the role values in individual and organizational lives. 315 teachers (from a population of 1775) and 86 principals (from a population of 110) were sampled through convenience sampling in con siltation with the Morgan’s table. Research instrument was a “Value Scale questionnaire” of Yilmaz and Balci (2009). SPSS (15th) was utilized to run analyses including frequencies, standard deviations, medians, means, and t-test. Findings suggested that both sample groups agreed upon some high priority and low priority individual and organizational values. Both the groups ranked highest “commitment”, “openness”, “religious devotion”, “honesty”, and “achievement” as the individual values and “cooperation”, “commitment”, “respect for people”, “fairness”, and “honesty” as the organizational values. For administrators and teachers, “money” was the lowest ranked individual and organizational value. T-test further revealed that their views significantly differed regarding some of the individual and organizational values.

The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between job stress, burnout, and life quality of Mohaghegh Ardabili University’s staffs and their satisfaction of organizational climate. The research method adopted in this study was descriptive-correlational and the population included all staffs in Mohaghegh Ardabili University. Data were collected from 112 staffs selected through simple random sampling. In order to collect information, a use was made of questionnaires on organizational climate, job stress, burnout, and life quality. The achieved data were analysed using Pearson correlation coefficient, standard multiple regression, and hierarchical multiple regression. Findings revealed a negative correlation to exist between the following categories: job stress with life quality, job stress with organizational climate satisfaction, job burnout with organizational climate satisfaction, and job burnout with life quality. Besides, a significant positive correlation was found between organizational climate satisfaction with life quality, and job burnout with job stress. It was further shown that satisfaction in organizational climate is clearly predictable from these three variables, i.e. burnout, job stress, and life quality. The overall result of this study was that understanding organizational climate and making it coherent can be used as an advantageous tool by managers to make the organization more efficient.