JOURNAL OF NEW APPROACH IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Year:2015 | Volume:5 | Issue:4 (20)|Papers Count:11

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationship of knowledge management enablers and processes to the performance of state universities in Isfahan province. This correlational study included 203 faculty members of selected state universities in Isfahan province. Research instruments were three questionnaires of knowledge management enablers (Lee & Choi, 2003), knowledge management processes (Park, (2006), and performance (Kaplan & Norton, 2001). A panel of experts of management approved their content validity. Construct validity of the instruments was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis and their reliability were 0.93.8, 0.95 and 0.89 respectively. Data analysis involved correlation coefficients and multiple regression analyses. The results suggested that that there was a statistically positive relationship between knowledge management enablers and processes and university performance. The results further indicated that knowledge management enablers could predict 64.6%, 45.5%, 51.1, and 49.4% of the variance of financial, customer, internal processes, and innovation and growth perspectives as the components of the university performance respectively. Knowledge management processes could also account for 0.51.7%, 37.2%, 44.1%, and 49.2% of the variance of financial, customer, internal processes, and innovation and growth attitudes perspectives respectively.

The present study aimed to posit a structural model to predict higher education managers’ job burnout based on their quality of work life, organizational commitment, and knowledge management. This applied and descriptive study included 250 managers of district one of Islamic Azad University selected through cluster sampling from among a total of 660 managers. In order to collect data a use was made of four questionnaires of job burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981), quality of work life (Walton, 1973), organizational commitment (Meyer, 1990), and knowledge management (Lawson, 2003) whose reliability indexes were assessed. The findings revealed that: 1. the relationship of the quality of work life, organizational commitment, and knowledge management to job burnout was statistically significant. 2. Quality of work life, organizational commitment, and knowledge management could predict the managers’ job burnout most. 3. There was a statistically negative relationship between quality of work life, organizational commitment, and knowledge management and the dependent variable of job burnout. 4. Quality of work life could account for emotional burnout and personal accomplishment. 5. All the components of work life quality could predict job burnout. 6. Organizational commitment could only account for individual job performance of managers’ job burnout. 7. Two dimensions of intellectual commitment and normative commitment could predict job burnout variance by 0.44% and 0.39% respectively. 8. Except individual performance none of the burnout components were predicted by knowledge management. 9. Only three dimensions of the knowledge management were able to predict job burnout. 10. The two dimensions of knowledge absorption and storage could predict the quality of work life. 11. Three components of quality of work life (healthy and safe workplace, legalism of the organization and the overall organization atmosphere) could account for job burnout.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship of ethical organization climate to organizational trust and commitment of high school teachers in Isfahan city. Research population of the present correlational study comprised all high school teachers of Esfahan city (n=275) in the school year 2013-2014. A sample of 90 teachers was selected and administered three questionnaires of ethical climate (Cullen, Victor & Bronson, 1993), organizational trust (Scott, 2003), and organizational commitment (Allen, & Meyer, 1990). Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficients of the instruments were 0.78, 0.89, and 0.89 respectively. In order to analyze the data, Smart PLS and SPSS softwares were used. Path analysis indicated that there was a significant causal relationship between the ethical climate and trust and commitment on the one hand and between trust and commitment on other. Company interest, efficiency, friendship, teamwork spirit, and personal morality were significantly correlated with organizational trust. In addition, efficiency and friendship had largest correlation with organizational trust. There were a significant correlation between self-interest, teamwork spirit, social responsibility, personal morality, and friendship (with maximum correlation) and organizational commitment.

The essential requirement to promote schools to learning organizations is effective, committed, and inspiring leaders. Therefore, the purpose of present survey was to identify the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership styles and learning organization in regular state- and board-run elementary schools in Hamadan province. A sample of 582 (226 state-run and 356 board-run) school teachers was drawn from a population of 5137 teachers. A use was made of two questionnaires of leadership styles (Bass & Avolio, 1995) and learning organization (Park, 2006) to collect data. Results revealed that the levels of transformational and transactional leaderships, and learning organization were above average in both school types. Independent t-test further indicated that board-run schools involved transformational leadership and state-run schools exercised transactional leadership. In addition, board-run schools were better than their counterparts in terms of learning organization. Pearson correlation coefficient also suggested that there was a significantly positive relationship (r=0.51, 0.46) between transformational leadership and learning organization in all schools. Additionally, regression analysis indicated that in board-run schools from among the components of transformational leadership, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence, and individualized consideration and in state-run schools, intellectual stimulation had biggest impact on learning organization.

This study examined the alignment of SAMT publication English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Bachelor of Arts textbooks and the relevant official curriculum standards in terms of Anderson and Krathwhol's (2001) cognitive taxonomy of educational objectives. To this aim, 21 ESP textbooks from among 64 textbooks for humanities were randomly selected, and together with their curriculum standards were content-analyzed employing a checklist developed drawing upon Anderson and Krathwhol's (2001) cognitive taxonomy of educational objectives. Porter's (2002) alignment index was also employed to assess the degree of alignment between the two curriculum components of interest in the current study. Data analysis suggested that 87.14% of the standards and 71.06% of the textbooks represented lower-order thinking skills (remembering, understanding, and applying) and only 12.8% and 28.9% of the standards and textbooks respectively accommodated higher-ordered thinking skills (analyzing, evaluating, and creating). In addition, not surprisingly, it was revealed that there was no significant alignment between the textbooks and their standards (0.41).

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between knowledge management and efficiency with a mediating effect of organizational culture in Lamerd IAU. The study population included all faculty members (n=105) of Islamic Azad University of Lamerd. This correlational study involved three standardized questionnaires of knowledge management (Haddad, 2006), organizational culture (Denison, 2000), and efficiency (Smith, et. al., 1998) with reliability indexes of 0.83, 0.76, 0.87 respectively. The results of the regression analysis (Baron & Kenny, 1986) suggested that knowledge management could positively predict organizational culture and efficiency. Knowledge management, mediated by organization culture, could also account for efficiency.

The purpose of the current study was to explore the impact of reflective thinking on metacognitive skills of high school students. Research was quasi-experimental with pre-test, post-test and control group. The study population were all high school second graders (N= 205) of Roudsar city in the school year 2013-2104. A sample of thirty students was selected through purposive sampling and then assigned to two experimental and control groups. Metacognition standard questionnaire including 20 questions grouped under four scales of awareness, cognitive strategy, planning and self-checking was the research instrument. Its validity was approved by O’Neil and Abedi (1996) and Salarifar (201). Its Cronbach’s alpha reliability was also calculated to be 0.78, 0.77, 0.78 and 0.73 for awareness, cognitive strategy, planning and self-checking scales respectively. MANCOVA revealed that there was a significant difference between the two groups in terms of the four dependent variables. In other words, it was suggested that reflective thinking programs enhanced the students’ metacognitive skills.

One of the components of transformational leadership concerns idealized influence through which the leader will be respected and trusted by followers. Leader’s sacrifice and attention to ethical values offers a functional model to the followers. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the status of idealized influence of principals of educational complexes in Salehabad city in the school year 2011-12. A total of 224 teachers of elementary and junior secondary schools was selected from among all teachers (n=541) using stratified sampling method. The study included 23 principals as well. The teachers were administered a researcher-designed questionnaire with 38 items to evaluate the principals’ idealized influence. The results suggested that their idealized influence was above average and satisfactory.

This study examined the effects of educators' professional capabilities in occupational success of graduates of agricultural scientific-applied higher education centers. From among 510 graduates in the central region, 145 participants were selected through stratified sampling. The main instrument of the study was a questionnaire and the collected data were analyzed employing both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that 79.3 % of the graduates were men and the rest were women. As regards the educators' professional capabilities, it was indicated that there was a significant difference between graduates' views towards some of the capabilities. Based on regression analysis, it was revealed that "scientific ability”, “practical ability and skills”, “mastery of technical knowledge”, “writing and speaking proficiency in Persian”, acquaintance with various scientific resources and references of agriculture field" were among the capabilities predicting occupational success of graduates.

The aim of this survey study was to identify and prioritize the educational needs of Yazd University research experts. The study included all Yazd University research experts (n=47). Job and employee analysis model was used to identify their standard educational needs. The needs were then prioritized employing multi-factor method. To identify normal educational needs a use was made of a questionnaire designed by the current researchers. Since the questionnaire development was part of the needs assessment process involving key informants’ views, it enjoyed face validity. However, to further ascertain its validity, factor analysis was employed. Its Cronbach’s alpha reliability was 0.83. The results revealed that the experts’ knowledge-, attitudes-, and skills-related needs were above minimum satisfactory level but below favorable level. Experts with diploma and those with more than 20 years’ of experience, those with master level degrees or less than 10 years’ of experience, those with bachelor degrees or 10 to 20 years of experience had greatest knowledge-, skills-, attitudes-related needs respectively.

Enterprise architecture approach as the dominant paradigm in the field of Information Technology Planning, has growingly been used in public and private organizations. Proper control of the changes in line with the organization goals requires accurate knowledge of the current and future states and a clear plan to move from the current to the desired stat. This can be accomplished through enterprise architecture. As Islamic Azad University has multiple branches across the country, it is essential that it follow a general comprehensive plan aligned with the organization goals. Therefore, in this study, the current architecture of Dehaghan branch from region four of Islamic Azad University and the university central secretariat were selected and evaluated. A qualitative approach was undertaken in documents analysis and Delphi method. As such, face-to-face interviews with vice chancellors, managers and employees along with the documents provided the data to analyze. Then, contrastive matrixes and descriptive models based on reference evaluation models of enterprise architecture were developed in terms of quality, alignment, convergence, integration, maintenance and development capabilities, performance, and security. Through document analysis, technical evaluation criteria were generated. The results of this evaluation suggested that the current state was not satisfactory and required improvement. Thus, a new service-oriented model was posited for the future state and then assessed using the Delphi method. The feedback indicated that the proposed model was appropriate to a large extent and approved by Iranian architects and experts.