RESEARCH ON ISSUES OF EDUCATION
Year:2004 | Volume:New | Issue:2-1 (19-20)|Papers Count:14

"Statistics", as a difficult course in comparison with "Social Psychology", causes a great deal of pressure on the university students. The pressure for production theory hypothesizes that correlation between satisfaction with "Statistics" and its expected grade as two variables in comparison with the same correlation in "Social Psychology" is influenced by high amount of pressure. Research regarding correlation between this two variables could be the same with research about correlation between "job satisfaction" and "job performance". This paper aims to examine the above-mentioned variables among students in Department of Psychology in the University of Isfahan. Two undergraduate classes in Department of Psychology were compared which dealt "statistics" (n=44) and "Social Psychology" (n=34), respectively. Findings showed that although satisfaction with "statistics" and its related grade, in comparison with "social psychology" is less but the correlation of this two variables in "statistics" is higher than the same correlation in "social psychology". According to the research results, we can conclude that the correlation between satisfaction with course and its expected grade in "Difficult Courses or Tasks" is significant. Furthermore, according to "Restriction" theory the findings indicated that in difficult courses such as "Statistics" due to more variance of grades (performance) among students, the correlation between satisfaction with course and grade is higher. Finally, this paper suggests that university professors try to have more variance of grades in easier courses in order to get higher correlation between grade (performance) and satisfaction with course.

Culture, education and action of problem solving through describing their historical, structural and functional situation, and sketching some normative conditions are the main subjects of the essay. It is usually considered that culture should deal with value domain and action deal with real affairs. The relations of culture, morality and education will be actually realized through communication. Here, communication is the symbol of live dynamism between action and culture. The dynamism of communicative reason and cultural actions that imply the products, memories, instrumental actions interact each other critically. Cultural action is an endeavor for linking the spectrum of values and its potential for influencing "real affair". The function of communicative reason is understanding and the function of instrumental reason implies an invasive successfulness. The first claim of this article is to clarify the communication, manipulation, propaganda, mythification, their imposing, invivo aspects, and blending and implicit confusion with education. The purpose of morality in education is to differentiate this blending and integrity and consequentially the possibility of the action of individuals. The second claim is that the problem solving is the heuristic role of empathetical evaluation and understanding two rationalities; which is the symbol of the human will and individual responsibility and education. This article tried to answer to the question of historical, genesis and structural-functional complexity and hermeneutical aspect of this issue. The theoretical attempt of this article tried to explain social and cultural meanings of education, problem solving and heuristic role of individuality, communication and morality.

Efficient and continuing education is the main determining factor for the development and progress of societies. Providing instruction in the affective domain compared to other domains of educational objectives (cognitive and psycho-motor) is more difficult, and during the past years has been the subject of many efforts. The goal of this paper is to familiarize the readers with the issue of attitude and ways of it's instruction: affective domain and it's importance in curriculum, elaborations about the concept of attitude, components or dimensions of attitude, theories of attitude instruction, and ways of special designing of attitudinal instruction. Some suggestions for elevation the quality of attitudinal instruction were presented.

In his multiple Intelligences Theory, Howard Gardner states that every human being has at least eight intelligences: Verbal/Linguistic, Musical/Rhythmic, Visual/Spatial, Bodily/Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalist. Gardner also argues that in traditional methods of teaching, the teacher activates only verbal and mathematical intelligences, which results in the educational failure of the students who are better at other Intelligences. In this study, various tasks activating the students' different Intelligences were designed, through which their performance in mathematics was investigated. The participants were selected from junior high-school students in Shahryar in the academic year 2001-2002. A quasi-experimental design was used to select two schools randomly, which were then divided into the control and the experimental group. Before the treatment, the students were given a pre-test to investigate their background knowledge and after the treatment, they were given a post-test. The questions of the post-test were based on the mathematics cognitive domains of TIMSS 2003, covering the four levels of knowing, using concepts, solving routine problems and reasoning. In order to examine the content validity of the pre-test and the post-test, the experts' opinions were consulted. The coefficient alpha for the reliability of the tests were.78%and .82%. The results revealed that the performance of the students who were taught based on Gardner's theory was better than that of those taught through the traditional method at all levels.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the output of the new religious education program in the affective and attitude objectives domain. Therefore, two groups of students were selected from the two programs (current and new) to compare their attitudes towards "God and how to get in touch with Him" and "prayers". The sample population of this research included the second-grade male and female students of primary schools in the province of Tehran performing the new religious education program in 1379-80. The sample group consisting of 280 male and female students was selected at random. Data were collected by the use of a Likert researcher-made questionnaire and open-ended questions and the interview method. Results proved that: 1) there was no significant difference between the two groups in their attitudes towards "God and how to get in touch with Him"; 2) there was no significant difference between the two groups regarding their attitudes towards "prayers"; and 3) the interactive effect of the sex and program variables on student attitude towards "God and how to get in touch with Him" was significant, so that the female students from the new program showed significantly higher positive attitudes towards "God and how to get in touch with Him" than the male students did.

The aim of this study was to compare social skills, self-esteem, and math achievement of single grade and multi grade classes. In order to explain the contribution of single -grade and multi-grade classes in the above dependent variables, the participants (268 male & female from both groups) completed three questionnaires (self-esteem, social skills, and math achievement). The analysis of the data revealed that: 1.There was a significant difference between the two groups concerning social skills, and math achievement, with the superiority to multi-graders. 2.There was not a significant difference in the level of self-esteem between the two different classes. 3.In the subscales of self-esteem (achievement self-esteem) the multi-grade students were superior to the single graders.

The Global Education (GE) Project in Iran is a four-year experiment that started in 2001-2002 academic year with the cooperation of the United Nations' Children Fund (UNICEF) in Iran. In this paper, the third phase of the project, implemented at the Guidance School's second grade level, in three areas of inputs, processes, and outputs is comprehensively evaluated. Methods used in this study were the following: Content analysis and evaluation of 68 learning activities; observing 200 instructional sessions; 19 school principals, 82 second grade teachers, 154 parents, and 162 second graders responded to the questionnaire; 20 principals, 69 teachers, 81 parents, and 110 second graders were additionally interviewed; the achievement scores of 1571 second graders (764 experimental and 807 control) on seven subjects in the first semester, and of 1637 students (729 experimental and 897 control) in the second semester were collected; and the performances of 311second graders (176 experimental and 125 control) on the performance test were evaluated. The findings indicate that the content of most activities were simple, clear, and comprehendible; method of implementation in all activities has been either collective or collective-individualistic and student-centered; and in designing the activities more attention has been given to skills, attitudes and knowledge, respectively. The training courses conducted for teachers and principals have been effective in increasing their knowledge of active methods. The average performance of the teachers in areas like "their orders being clear, students' motivation and interest, facilitating all students' participation, and taking advantage of both verbal and non-verbal communication" has been as desired. However, their average performance in areas like "showing creativity while engaged in the activity, tying to link the activity to the global issues; to previously covered material as well as to their daily lives, and connecting the present to the past and future"; is indicative of their inadequacy. Furthermore, they were unable to be "challenging and accompany students in their attempt at facing the challenges, asking questions, and commenting in the classroom". The Project has been faced with difficulties in the following areas during the course of implementation: "necessary educational facilities and spaces, time allotted, high volume textbooks and courses, activities being tiresome for teachers, activities not being that attractive to some students that lead to their lack of participation, teachers' inadequate knowledge and skill in doing the activities, disputes among students over group membership and leadership, teachers high volume of work, and finally the evaluation system used". Although the average performance of experimental and contrast (comparison) groups of students in the seven subject matters across two semesters is almost identical, in math, the experimental group slightly has out performed the other group. Despite the fact that the frequency of the correct responses given by the experimental group in areas of skills and knowledge was higher than that of the other group, but the slight difference was not statistically significant.

Universalistic or particularistic approaches as well as individuals' social, demographic characteristics can affect their interest in and attachment to their national identity. Taking into account the empirical data, this paper assesses the above- mentioned hypothesis among high school students. The survey findings demonstrate that there is a significant relation between particularism and national identity. On the other hand, a correlation exists between student's social, demographic traits (gender, social class, parents education and residence) and their attachment to national identity. Furthermore, the secondary results of the research illustrate student's propensity towards macro collective identities such as religious and cosmopolitan.