مطالعات آموزش و یادگیری
سال:1397 | دوره:10 | شماره:1 (پیاپی 1-74) |تعداد مقالات:14

Introduction From the outset, P4C’ s dialogical foundations were rested upon Socrates method as well as Vygotsky’ s developmental concepts of internalization and zone of proximal development. However, there are new rounds of philosophical and psychological critiques, embraced also by the P4C program, interrogating both Socrates dialogical method and Vygotsky’ s aforementioned concepts. That is why some scholars of P4C suggest Bakhtinian dialogue as the last alternative for dialogical foundations of P4C. Method As far as the method is concerned, this investigation uses the speculative essay as suggested by William. H. Schubert (1991). In a philosophical essay, the essayist wonders, ponders, questions, theorizes, speculates, philosophizes and projects the imagination in an attempt to combine and modify preexisting ideas in a special way. This speculative attitude of philosophical essay makes it also a speculative essay. (Izuegbu, 2011: p 25). Schubert (1991) believes essay is a record of the author speculating and theorizing… one must remember that the essay is a portrayal of the author’ s way of reflecting. It is, thus a form of philosophical inquiry put in to writing. (pp 65-66). Discussion and conclusions After raising criticisms to Socrates, Vygotsky and Bakhtin’ s approaches to dialogue, we explored an alternative avenue for the dialogical foundations of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI) drawing on decentration theory that can also provide a point of departure for developing a dialogical theory of teaching and learning. In light of this theory, dialogue has two characteristics: firstly, one can consider monologue and dialogue as existing on a continuum, at any point of which, an event fused with “ monologue and dialogue” is passing through. And secondly, identical to monologue and dialogue, dialectics and dialogue are relatively fused at any point. Therefore, what happens in a community of learning is a vacillation between different points of view, that traverse along the same path of vacillation between centration and decentration. Furthermore, this theory holds promise for reconsidering shortcomings of Vygotsky’ s internalization and zone of proximal development as psychological foundations of dialogue in CPI. As such, regarding decentration theory, concepts of “ making one’ s own” and “ zone of proximal dialogue” are superseded by those of vygotsky’ s. The most challenging problem with Vygotsky’ s concept of internalization is abolition of decentration in the process of vacillation between centration and decentration. Dominance of parents and teachers’ voice as the first voice over the second voice, namely that of the child, student or trainee is the target of some criticisms Vygotsky’ s ZPD faces today.

Introduction In the moral psychological domain, it is important to investigate role of facilitator variables on moral action. Academic dishonesty is a sensitive and prevalent problem in academic contexts. This concept defined as the intent or effort made to illegally use documents and information to obtain academic credentials. Academic dishonesty as an amoral action in such educational contexts as schools and universities. The present research, based on Anderman and Murdak's conceptual model, examined the role of epistemological beliefs in the tendency toward academic dishonesty. Personal epistemology concerns beliefs about knowledge and knowing. Therefore, more empirical research is needed to examine the dimensionality of academic dishonesty and to verify whether the relations between those dimensions and motivational beliefs depends on knowledge and knowing. In other words, it is probable that such beliefs have a regulatory function in determining academic achievement and moral behaviors in educational contexts. In particular, there is a great need to investigate personal epistemology and its relation to academic dishonesty in the Iranian culture. Research question To this end, the present study aims to investigate the role and contribution of personal epistemological beliefs in determining academic dishonesty and learning outcomes and further to determine the role of gender in this regard. The research questions were: 1-What types of epistemic beliefs are predictive of academic dishonesty? 2-How does gender affect the relationship between epistemological beliefs and academic dishonesty? Method The present study examined role of epistemological beliefs in predicting academic dishonesty as an indication of moral behaviors and further to verify the role of gender as a mediating variable. The Participants were 370 under graduate students at Shiraz University (276 females and 94 males). The participants completed the epistemic beliefs inventory (Schraw, Bendixen & Dunkle, 2002) and the cheating questionnaire (Khamesaan & Amiri, 2011). The software programs used in this study were SPSS19 and WARP8. 5. T-test, exploratory factor analysis and correlational analysis were conducted using SPSS, and path analysis was performed with WARP. Result The dimensionality of the Schraw, Bendixen, and Dunkle’ s Epistemological Questionnaire was verified through factor analysis, and the resulting dimensions were examined. The result demonstrated a significant path between components of academic dishonesty (plagiarism, active cheat and passive cheat) and epistemological beliefs (innate ability and quick learning). Moreover, the mediating role of gender in the model was confirmed. The model was fitted the data and the fitness indices were desirable. In fact, the desire in girls to learn more quickly was the variable that could best predict their academic dishonesty. On the other hand, the innate ability was the factor that could best predict active or passive cheating in boys. Discussion and Conclusion: In sum, the result of the research supported the role of epistemological beliefs as well as gender in determining moral behaviors. In this regard, the results highlighted the role of gender schema in determining academic dishonesty. Epistemological beliefs predict instances of academic dishonesty in Iranian students and thus play an important role in this educational context. Similarly, naï ve realism was found to increase the likelihood of displaying an amoral behavior. It is assumed that by changing beliefs from naive realism to complex relativity, the likelihood of ethical behaviors in academic relationships will increase. However, more empirical research is needed to ascertain this issue. However, taking the assumption that by moving from naï ve realism toward a more critical and constructive perception, chances of academically dishonest behaviors will decline, the results of the present study have implications for families, teachers, psychologists, and counselors. Primarily, the instructors need to provide atmospheres reinforcing stronger and more authentic beliefs so that they can reduce chances of academic dishonesty, which naï ve realism might cause. Moreover, the results of the study imply for counselors and psychologists to consider their clients’ epistemological beliefs, particularly when dealing with their academic dishonesties.

Introduction Critical thinking refers to self-regulated thinking that involves fair reasoning without any bias or prejudice (Fell & Lukianova, 2015). It is also an active and skillful conceptualization, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of gathered or produced data using observation, experience, deep thinking, argumentation, or communication (King & DeCicco, 2009). The significance of critical thinking is highlighted taking into account that the Holy Quran inspires humans to nurture traits and characteristics that contribute to the growth of spiritual intelligence (Ibrahimi & Azapoor, 1388), and critical thinking is one aspect of spiritual intelligence, through which one seeks to find the right way to live. Indeed, in spiritual intelligence, critical thinking is referred to as critical existential thinking (CET) (King, 2008). Moreover, critical thinking is a kind of problem solving (Naddafi, 1385) and problem solving is an aspect of intelligence in general (Frensch & Funke, 2002), and of spiritual intelligence in particular (Ahmadi, Zamani, &Sarzaym, 2014). The significance of spiritual intelligence, and of critical thinking, is further recognized taking maturity in spiritual intelligence (spiritual maturity) an integrated proactive agent (Emmons, 2007), a framework for recognizing and structuring the skills and strengths (Amram, 2009), and an insight that induces tolerance, dauntlessness of life hardship, and allows finding rational humane solutions (Zohar & Marshall, 2008). It is the intelligence individuals use when resolving spiritual or moral value problems; therefore, spiritual intelligence enables one to find goals and a personal meaning for life (Hossainchari & Zakeri, 1388). Critical thinking is also related to creativity (DeWaelsche, 2015; Fell & Lukianova, 2015; Perkins, 2005). Indeed, creativity is a complex social, cultural, and psychological process that leads to new meaningful outcomes (Glaveanu, 2009). One significant aspect of creativity is emotional creativity, which together with critical thinking, emotional creativity plays a key role in the process of thinking (Thayer-Bacon, 2000) and is associated with different spiritual experiences (Averill, 2011). Sofar, no research has been conducted in the field of spiritual intelligence and emotional creativity, but researchers relate spiritual intelligence to emotional intelligence (King, 2008; Mayer & Gehe, 1996; Wigglesworth, 2002-2012; Zohar, 2010), and critical thinking to creativity (DeWaelsche, 2015; Fell & Lukianova, 2015; Perkins, 2005). Mayer and Geher (1996) have shown that spiritual intelligence is related to emotional creativity. Nevertheless, Malamiri and Fekrazad suggested that emotional intelligence and creativity are not related to each other. Karimi's results (1390), on the other hand, showed that spiritual intelligence and emotional creativity are the positive predictors of critical thinking disposition. Given the intimacy between cognition and affection, the question that arises here concerns whether instruction on spiritual intelligence could affect the students’ emotional creativity and orientation toward critical thinking. Although there are studies considering the correlation between, for instance, spiritual intelligence and critical thinking or spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence, there is no research investigating the impact of spiritual intelligence instruction on both critical thinking disposition and emotional creativity. Research Questions-Does spiritual intelligence instruction have any impact on critical thinking disposition?-Does spiritual intelligence instruction have any impact on emotional creativity? Method This was an experimental research, using a pretest-posttest with control group design. The statistical population was all high school female students in Kerman and the participants were 34 students who were recruited through multi-cluster sampling method and were placed into two groups of experimental and control groups, using simple randomized method. To gather data, Ricket’ s critical thinking tendency and Averill’ s emotional creativity inventories were used as pretest in both groups. Then, the spiritual instruction as the independent variable (intervention) was conducted only in the experimental group in 10 sessions of 90 minutes each; the control group did not receive any instructions. At the end of instructions, the questionnaires were administered again in both groups as posttests. Data was analyzed using the covariance analysis. Results Results show that the spiritual intelligence instruction has a positive and meaningful impact on the intervention group’ s critical thinking disposition but it has no impact on their emotional creativity. Discussion The first hypothesis was confirmed and it is concluded that the spiritual intelligence instruction has an impact on critical thinking disposition. This finding is in correspondence with the findings of Azizi (2015), Karimi (1390), and Mollamohammadi and Etemad Ahari (2016). The finding is justifiable in that based on King’ s (2008) definition of spiritual intelligence, critical thinking is an aspect of spiritual intelligence and involves problem solving (Naddafi, 1385). In fact, as problem solving is an aspect of cognitive intelligence, spiritual intelligence also entails a type of critical thinking through which individuals can find the right way to live (Ahmadi, Zamani, &Sarzaym, 2014). Critical thinking encompasses all humans’ positive activities (Fodor & Carver, 2000) and spiritual intelligence instruction includes individuals’ spiritual growth which has an impact on their critical thinking disposition. The second hypothesis was rejected, indicating that instruction on spiritual intelligence has no impact on emotional creativity. No analogous research was found in the literature, according to which the results could be explained; however, a probable explanation might be the vagueness of the questions to the students that did not allow them to interpret them appropriately. Another explanation could be that both spiritual intelligence and emotional creativity are essentially complex issues (Amiri and Partabian, 1395) that are hard to comprehend (Averill, 2011). The studies conducted so far have reached different results (Karimi, 1392; Malamiri & Fekr azad, 2015; Mayer & Geher, 1996), which could be due to the use of different methodologies, instruments, or statistical population. Another probable explanation is in differences in some aspects of emotional creativity (Kanhai, 2014), uniqueness of the construct, and the existence of different kinds of creativities (Lim, 2005). It is recommended that this research be conducted in other academic levels, including university levels, on males, in other cities, with shorter questionnaires and more understandable items. It is further suggested that critical thinking and spiritual intelligence workshops be conducted for teachers and students.

Introduction To handle challenges in their lives, human beings need to be creative. Due to the important role of creativity in human life, many scholars (e. g., de Bono, 1986; Guliford, 1967, Torrance, 1990) started to conduct studies to investigate different aspects of creativity. Hence, new perspectives are constantly added to creativity and the way one can enhance it. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of teaching creativity on high school students’ cognitive related aspects of creativity including observation ability, thinking ability, data analysis, coherent thinking, identification of in-text relationships, and using schemata. This study was an investigation to answer the following research questions: Research Questions 1. Does teaching creativity to high school students have any significant effect on the cognitive-related aspects of their creativity when doing the project based tasks individually? 2. Is there any statistically significant deference between females and males when doing the project-based tasks individually? 3. Does teaching creativity to high school students have any significant effect on the cognitive-related aspects of their creativity when doing the project based tasks individually? 4. Is there any statistically significant deference between females and males when doing the project-based tasks collaboratively? Method Participants in this study were 73 students high school students (33 females and 40 males) with 14 to 16 years of age, who were selected through purposive sampling according to whether they had previously attended any extracurricular activities held at school. These students had enrolled in the seasonal school of creativity held by Fars Elite Foundation, whose purpose is to increase the students’ creativity. In these workshops, the students generally learn how to observe the environment around themselves, how to detect problems, how to brainstorm for the problems, and how to evaluate their ideas to select one as a solution to the observed problem. The study used the one-group, pre-test post-test design in which the researchers assessed the creativity of the students before and after the instructions through task-based assessment. The pretest was a project-based task examining the students’ level of creativity with regard to the cognitive aspects of creativity, including the ability to observe, analyze data, think coherently, identify in-text relationships, and use schemata. Following that, the workshops started and the students took part in different workshops. At the end of the program, a post-test was administered in which the students were asked to provide their responses to another project-based task examining the aforementioned factors. A scale was designed to assess the tasks based on the stated criteria. Two raters assessed the responses provided by the students through the given rating scale. To reduce misunderstandings, the two raters practiced using the scale before they applied it to evaluate the tasks. Using Cramer Correlation Coefficient, interrater reliability was assessed between the two raters. With r =. 82, the results suggested a high degree of agreement based on Cohen (1998). Results The results revealed that the creativity instruction had a statistically significant effect on the cognitive aspects of both male and female students, no matter whether they accomplished the tasks individually or collaboratively. That said, the results indicated that all of the six factors including observation ability, thinking ability, data analysis, coherent thinking, identification of in-text relationship, and using schemata increased more significantly for female students in the post-test, especially when they performed on the tasks individually. However, coherent thinking of the boys did not show any statistically significant differences in the post-test when they did the tasks individually. Moreover, no statistically significant difference was seen in the collaborative performance between female and male students while doing the tasks. Discussion There are different reasons for the obtained information. First of all, based on Schmidt’ s (2010) awareness hypothesis, one can argue that when students participated in the workshops with thinking and creativity essence, they became aware of creativity and thinking strategies, which they applied in the post-test task. On top of this, the “ hands on policy” used to instruct the students might have helped them to enhance their criticality in thinking and creativity. Finally, the syllabus design of the seasonal schools of creativity and ideation might have contributed to the students’ enhanced creativity when performing on the second tasks. This could be insightful for the instruction of creativity. The findings bear some implications for teaching and promoting creativity in high school students.