Foundations of Education
Year:2011 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:8

In this research, historical background of hierarchical and emanative view of Neo-Platonic, and Plotinus in particular, is taken into account and its influence on Sadra's philosophy is critically analyzed. On the one hand, one cannot consider the hierarchical view as Sadra's own contribution and, thus, Sadra's view is at the exposure of the criticisms leveled against that of Plotinus. On the other hand, it cannot be said that Sadra has only reiterated the previous insights and had no contribution whatsoever. Implications of the hierarchical view can be sought in educational aims and phases. The final aim, according to this view, should be sought in terms of a mystical relation to God. Regarding the middle aims and phases of education, hierarchical degrees form sense to imagination and intellect requires that sensual and imaginative activities be promoted to the abstract rational level the implication of this view would be a hierarchical ordering of subject matters which would be challenged by parallelism in curriculum. This research suggests a middle way between the hierarchical and parallel views which can be termed as diachronic parallelism. According to this suggestion, subject matters will have a parallel relationship but not concomitantly.

A speculative Essay on Secondary Curriculum: General Curriculum, Specialized Curriculum or Convergence within the Framework of "Soft Specialization" The dual missions attached to secondary education makes this stage of education a particularly fuzzy stage. This fuzzy state has a direct impact on the curriculum of this level of schooling, since the curriculum is the main mean to the ends sought for any stage. The secondary curriculum, therefore, has been subject to many different understandings and the result has been a variety of proposals put forth by experts and scholars to fulfill the ends deemed more relevant for this critical stage of education. The proposals, however, reach a conclusion by oversimplifying the nature of the problem or by overlooking the roots of the controversies that is the duality mentioned earlier. The author suggests that the duality needs to be taken into consideration in a creative solution to the problem of secondary curriculum. The solution needs to stand in a middle ground that neither surrenders to the assumptions of general/uniform curriculum advocates, nor to the assumption of those who advocate the opposite that a specialized curriculum. Positively speaking, too, it should carry with it the defensible arguments residing in each. The author, thus, has coined the term "soft specialization" to illustrate how this middle ground can be achieved.

This essay evaluates the major methodological trends in research at the Iranian academic educational journals based on Scott's methodological criticism. Therefore, the present study sought to examine a small part of Iranian educational research in the context of Scott's taxonomy, including nine major fallacies: epistemic, homogeneity, causal, essentialist, value free knowledge, prospective, reductive, deterministic, and pragmatism. Of 158 articles, published in nine leading educational journals in Iran during March 2002 and March 2007, 96 percent used quantitative methods, one used qualitative method, and 4 percent used a mixed method. Our analyses suggest that most of the methodological fallacies were observable in all the published work. This is in contrast with Scott's point of view. He argued that the nine methodological fallacies merely apply to quantitative research. Given the Importance of our findings, the preliminary conclusion is the need to develop an alternative approach to more effectively prevent the emergence of methodological fallacies in educational research.

The present study aims at investigating the philosophical foundations of three research approaches as explaining, understanding and critique and analyzing the role of each in the educational research. The research method is comparative analysis. In the paradigm of explaining, by accepting the independent existence of universe from the human being, social universe as following natural universe and also the separation of reality and value, truth is evaluated in relation to reality. Therefore, the aim of educational research is the causal explaining and prediction of future behavior based on the present behaviors. In the paradigm of understanding, by accepting the basic differences between the social and natural sciences, the emphasis turns to the twofold importance of interpretation: in the process of educational research, defining the human behaviors is done by a researcher who is the interpreter and the definer. With an emphasis on the role of understanding in any research, this paradigm is criticized. Also the human beings look for changing the universe for obtaining more freedom and justice and the approach to this aim is critique. Finally, the continuum approach is selected as an alternative for paradigm approach, and is discussed that any educational research includes explaining, understanding and critique.

Despite scholars' increasing interests in and the need for designing alternative and desirable models in the curriculum field, the concept of the model (including its understanding, categorizing and model building) has been ignored and disregarded in the curriculum design system. In addition, in currently designed models, there is a vague of explaining and extending the concept of the model, the kind of applied model and the reason of applying a model. The literatures are all just about properties of the designed model. The current study, from analytical attributive approach, extends the concept of the model in the field of curriculum. First, it conceptualizes the models in the field of Education, explains models and outlines the kinds of models in the curriculum field by the literature study. The conceptualization model in the field of curriculum is explained by exemplifying some related models. From practical dimension, previously studies on the curriculum field are analyzed. From findings, it is concluded that an understanding of the concept of a model and strict attention in the methodology of designing a model should be considered and paid in the future studies.

The purpose of this research was to analyze relationship between the self-leadership behavioral- focused strategies and creativity among the faculty members of Iran University of Science and Technology. Statistical population of research included all faculty members at Science and Technology University of Iran in 2009- 2010 academic year who were 345. Statistical sample was 119 who were selected by random stratified sampling. To gather data, two questionnaires were used: Self- leadership behavioral- focused strategies questionnaire with 16 items and Radnsip questionnaire with 46 items. The reliability coefficients of questionnaires were obtained through Cronbach alpha as 0.83 and 0.81. Content Questionnaires validity confirms by experts & specialization. The results showed that there was significant correlation between self-leadership behavioral- focused strategies and creativity. There was no significant difference between averages of self-leadership behavioral strategies based on college, tenure and academic ranking and also there was no significant difference between averages of creativity based on college and academic ranking however significant differences was seen with view to tenure (P<0.05).

A random simple 320 elementary school teachers (160 male and 160 female) from district I of Shiraz school system were selected and implemented two scales: a) Bass's (1985) Multifactor Leadership questionnaire (MLQ): this instrument was translated into Persian and its validity and reliability was re-confirmed by the researcher. B) Maudy, steers, and Porter's Commitment scale (1974), the Validity and reliability of this scale was confirmed by Mortazavi (1372). The gathered data were analyzed and the following result were revealed: 1) There was found a significant relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment (r=0.33, p<0.0001); 2) No significant relationship was found between transactional leadership and organizational commitment; 3) Two way analysis of variance showed no interaction between transformational and transactional leadership and organizational commitment; 4) Male and female transformational leaders differed in the extent of their effects on teachers commitment to the organization: That is female leaders more effective on commitment of teachers to the organization (t=4.40 df=245 P<0.0001); 5) No significant difference was found between transactional leadership styles of two sexes; 6) And finally it was found that charisma as a subcategory of trans formational leadership showed The highest variance (F.5, 196)=5.38 P<0.0001 R2=12).

This article was written to verify the theory of evolutionary epistemology and the possibility of its educational applications. According to Popper we learn from our expectations or hypothesis, not from our observations or sense experiences. All learning is the modification of the knowledge- the modification of the skills and understandings- we already possess. This theory is the opposite of the common sense view that man learns from his/her observations or sense experience. Popper believes we learn from error- elimination process, that is to say, our learning start from our innate knowledge not from outside. It seems we are able to apply his theory, at least in three realms of the formal education: educational reforms, method of teaching and curriculum. This research is a theoretical and philosophical one and the method of study is a deductive - inferential method. To do the research all accessible resources - first and second hand - were gathered and studied. The final part of the article was devoted to critical discussion of the Popper's theory in the sphere of education.