INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES
Year:2013 | Volume:3 | Issue:3 (11)|Papers Count:9

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between playing computer games and students’ mental health and academic performance. Regarding the purpose, the research was applied, and the method of performing was descriptive and correlational. The statistical society included 1576 boy secondary school students in Galikesh town, Golestan province in academic year 2011-2012. Using Krejcie and Morgan table, 310 people were selected as the sample via stratified random sampling with respect to base distribution. The data has been collected via two questionnaires: SCL-25 public health questionnaire with reliability of 0.88 and standardized questionnaire (to gather information about the amount and type of computer games) with reliability of 0.826. To analyze the data, Chi-Square test, t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient were used. The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between computer games and students’ mental health. There was also significant relationship between computer games and students’ academic performance. There was no meaningful difference between the types of computer games (simple/violent) and mental health. Students’ academic performance had meaningful relationship with the type of computer games. It is, therefore, imperative that parents should be more careful about the amount and the type of computer games that children play.

Internet is an important part of everyday life of the present society. The Technology Acceptance Model of Davis tries to give analysis of how to use internet. Attitudes towards internet are one of the variables of the model. The present paper tries to test validity of attitudes towards internet. The data in this study was collected among BA and MA male and female students from Isfahan University and Islamic Azad University, Dehaghan Branch using survey research. The tool used was Jones and Clark questionnaire on attitudes towards internet. The results indicated that the students’ attitudes towards internet were expressed at a high level. Significant difference in attitudes towards the internet based on sex, kind of university and level of education was not observed. The reliability of the research tool was 0.84. The factor analysis confirmed that all 40 items of the tool could be reduced to three factors, which indicates the constructor validity of the tool.

The main purpose of the present study is to determine the effective factors on distance education technology acceptance among PhD candidates in Higher Education center, Payam-E-Noor University, Iran. This was a descriptive and survey-based study. The sample population of the study consists of 248 PhD candidates out of the statistical society of 1384 students who were selected, using Morgan table, through simple random selection, and answered the questionnaire made by 30 distance education experts. Distance education experts’ viewpoints and Cronbach Alpha (0.84) were used to determine, respectively validity and reliability of data collecting tool. The collected data was analyzed with SPSS and LISREL, using descriptive and inferential statistics techniques. The results indicated that factors had the most influential effect on the technology acceptance, respectively: technological self-sufficiency, technological mastery, usefulness, accessibility and comprehensive supports. Using factor analysis method, the results also showed that the fitness indexes (CFI=0.97), (RMSEA=0.067), (ACFI=0.98) and (NFI=0.98) were appropriate. In other words, these indexes can be used as effective factors in distance education acceptance in Payam-E-Noor University in Iran.

The aim of this study was to investigate the viewpoints of teachers on barriers to applying information and communications technology in the process of teaching and learning. With respect to the purpose, this research was applied, and its method of performing was descriptive-survey. By means of simple random sampling method, and using the Cochrane formula, 240 people were selected as the sample. The data collecting tool was the researcher-made questionnaire consisting of 42 questions. The opinions of education experts were used to determine the validity. Via Cronbach Alpha and using the SPSS software, the reliability of the questionnaire has equaled 0.86. In order to analyze the questions of the research and indentify barriers, exploratory factor analysis method has been used. The research results indicated that the barriers to applying ICT in teaching and learning process involve six factors: Physical infrastructure weakness, managerial infrastructure weakness, weakness of support services for teachers, lack of teachers’ cognitive preparation, lack of training for teachers to teach the new model of teaching, and lack of technical lesson planning and teachers’ cultural readiness.

The development of information and communication technology in society, which is blended in people’s everyday lives, has changed the society to electronic society. In order to go hand in hand with E-society, our country should pay special attention to E-citizen education issue in which educational and curriculum system has a key role. The present study was to explore E-citizen status in the book Kar and Fanavari (work and technology) for the sixth grade. The study was of applied nature, using quantitative method and content analysis. The analysis units were sentences and images. The measurement tool applied was E-citizen’s skill and education standard for the IT curriculum development of the state technical and vocational training organization. The standard consists of three main components: a) basic computer knowledge and skills, b) data searching knowledge and skills, and c) E-participation and citizenship. Descriptive statistics (frequency, frequency percentage and tables) was applied to analyze the data. The results revealed that 80.05% of all the sentences and images of the book are related to basic computer knowledge and skills, and 10.22% are related to the data searching knowledge and skills. The book does not contribute to the E-participation and citizenship component and there is no such sentence or image as related to it. Besides, 9.73% of the sentences and images of the book are allocated to irrelevant components.

This paper aims to investigate the role of dimension computer game in students’ achievement motivation as well as their mathematics achievement in relation to their background knowledge of English and mathematics. This study was a kind of quasi experimental research with pre-test and post-test with a control group. The statistical population included boy students in grade two of secondary school in Tehran city. Through cluster random sampling method, 87 have been selected and divided into two control and test groups. The research tools were researcher-made English test, mathematics test and mathematics achievement motivation questionnaire. The statistical method was block multiple variance analysis. The research results indicated that the computer game based method (dimension game for teaching equation and coordinate axes) with media of English and mathematics background knowledge can increase academic achievement. English background had no influence on the effect of dimension computer game on tendency motive. Computer game with medium of mathematics background knowledge can increase tendency motive. English background did not have any influence on the effect of dimension computer game on preventive motive either. Computer game with the medium of mathematics background knowledge, too, can increase preventive motive. Computer game based method with media of English and mathematics background knowledge can result in positive attitude towards mathematics. Therefore, we can conclude that emphasis on English and mathematics background knowledge as well as using educational computer games can lead to students’ academic achievement and mathematics achievement motivation.

This study has been conducted in a quasi-experimental design with pre-test post-test approach to compare the effects of three blended learning scenarios in promoting health information and knowledge among elementary students of Ilam in 2013. To do so, three classes were selected randomly in one of the male elementary schools and each class was randomly assigned to one of the three groups: teaching with use of digital multimedia and simple conceptual maps, complex conceptual maps, and the popular method (lecture, discussion, and question and answer). One way analysis of Variance and LSD test were used for data analysis. The results of the study indicated that there was a significant difference between learning levels of health information and knowledge of the three groups, and Eta coefficient revealed that the type of teaching method accounts for 6 percent of learning variance and 9 percent of knowledge variance. Besides, LSD test results revealed that blending teaching methods using digital multimedia and simple conceptual maps proved to be more effective than the other two methods in increasing students’ level of health knowledge.

The aim of the present research was to investigate the effect of multimedia software-based citizenship education on increasing citizenship awareness of eight-year-old children in Isfahan city using semi-empirical method with two testing and control groups and with pretest and posttest. The statistical population of the study was a total of 26572 grade-two male and female primary students of Isfahan city among which two boys’ and girls’ schools were chosen by random cluster sampling method. Then, two classes were chosen among grade-two classes in each school as a test group and a control group (78 people). Having been pretested, both groups (boys and girls) were taught multimedia software-based citizenship education for five weeks. Then, both were given a posttest. The data collecting tool was a combitional researcher made test covering five fields including national identity, religious teachings, familiarity with rules and regulations, social relations and behavior and protecting environment, whose validity was verified and whose reliability, using split-half method, was estimated 0.85. The research findings showed that there was a difference between pretest and posttest scores of the participants in all aspects of the training. The results also indicated that multimedia software- based citizenship education had more effects on boys than girls. In addition, the highest influence was on protecting environment and the lowest influence was on religious teachings.