JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS
Year:2010 | Volume:8 | Issue:32|Papers Count:10

The Purpose of the present study was to examine the validity and factor analysis reliability of Pekrun's achievement emotions questionnaire (2002). 600 Tehran high school students were randomly selected to participate in this study. Cronbach alpha coefficient and factor analysis were used to determine the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. The results were in line with Pekrun (2002) and revealed that the questionnaire has an acceptable consistency. Cronbach alpha coefficients for its subscales were between 0.74 to 0.86. Meanwhile, the results of the confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the structure of the questionnaire has an acceptable fit to the data. So; the questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument to measure students' achievement emotions.

In this paper, we tried to develop a model based on some factors that affect 3-6 years old children’s creativity and some characters of architecture systems. Based on the ideas of this model, kindergartens can be made as places that fosters young childrens' motivation, curiosity, imagination and creativity. The research method was survey. The sample consisted of 219 teachers of kindergartens who were selected using random cluster sampling. In order to gather the teachers' attitudes, a researcher-made test was used as there was no related standard test. After examining the validity and reliability of the test, the data was analyzed using descriptive- inferential statistics and the influential factors was extracted using factor analysis method. Also, the linear model was designed based on the analyses.Then, the relationship between factors and the degree of their influence on each other was obtained using path analysis and the model was revised. The findings showed that "The stimulating characteristics of natural environment" has positive and significant impact on the three factors of "curiosity", "playing" and "imagination". Also, "The flexibility of functions" has positive and significant impact on "curiosity" and "imagination" of young children. The findings has implications for architectural ideas such as changablity of spaces and its components, composition of open and closed spaces, changability, variability and reconstructing the natural stimulating elements like light, water, plants of kindergarten setting. Using such ideas, we could design kindergartens in a way that foster the motivation and creativity of young children.

The general aim of the present research was to study the impact of active methods of teaching on reading literacy development of Mazandaran fourth and fifth grade elementary school students. Regarding the purpose, this research was applied, and given the non-equivalent group and pretest-posttest plan in the experimental and control groups for each grade, it could be viewed as a quasi-experimental research. The statistical population of this study included 40438 fourth grade and 40263 fifth grade elementary school students. Among the population mentioned, 384 fourth graders and 384 fifth graders from 40 classes of five cities and regions of Mazandaran Province have been selected as the control and experimental groups based on the multi-stage random-cluster sampling method. The data collection instruments include reading literacy tests containing literary and informational texts, the validity of which was confirmed by the experts of educational groups. The reliability of the texts, which was obtained through the method of retesting and the statistical analysis of Pierson Correlation, was 0.92 and 0.88 for the literary texts and the informational texts, respectively. The results of these dependent and independent Parametric tests showed that active methods of teaching are effective in reading literacy development of both literary and informational texts in fourth graders as well as in fifth graders. The results also showed that there is not a significant difference between the students of the two grades according to the reading literacy development of the literary and informational texts.

In this paper, we studied the mediating role of cognitive-academic engagement (deep and superficial processing strategies) between multi achievement goals (mastery, approach-performance, avoidance-performance goals) and academic achievement among female mathematics students in Tehran third grade high schools. 254 students have been selected through multi stage random sampling across high schools that located in north, south and center of Tehran. Questionnaire of achievement goals (Midgleyetal, 1998) and subscale of learning strategies from the questionare of motivational strategies for learning have been applied (Pintrich and Deegrot, 1994).At the end of academic year, students' average was accounted on the basis of their scores on five special lessons and was considered as their academic achievement indicator. Data were analyzed by confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha coefficient and structural equations model. Results showed that superficial and deep cognitive academic engagement has a mediating role between mastery goals, performance-approach goals and academic achievement. The results also showed the mediating role of superficial cognitive academic involvement between performance-avoidance goals and academic achievement.

The major objective of this research was developing a quality promoting model for girls' education in the less-developed rural areas. Accordingly, if the submitted model could result in qualitative education in less-developed areas, it could be used as a basis to develop other models. For this purpose, major issues of Rask girls' education was determined on the basis of Pareto Chart and an instructional model and package was designed based on that. The research question was: "What is the impact of the developed quality promoting model on girls' school achievement and their school absenteeism in less-developed rural areas?" The target population of the research was elementary school girls of Rask-Sistan-o-Baluchistan Province. The research sample consisted of 866 students who were selected through simple random sampling technique, after analyzing educational indicators. Then, the sample was divided into experimental and control groups. The independent variable was the developed quality promoting model that was designed on the basis of participative and cooperative teaching methods and it was implemented in 2008-2009 academic year on the experimental group. At the end of the academic year, the effects of this independent variable on dependent variables, i.e., courses scores, ability to communicate, affective attitude toward school and also their rate of school absenteeism was examined The results showed significant differences between experimental and control groups. So, we could conclude that all of the hypotheses were confirmed. In other words, the developed quality promoting model has been effective in increasing girls' courses scores, communication skills, and affective attitude toward school. Also, it led to their decreasing rate of school absenteeism.

The aim of this descriptive research was to evaluate Roshd educational website according to the designing standards of educational websites. Statistical population of this research was Roshd educational network of which the general part and three courses of chemistry, physics and Arabic were selected randomly and evaluated. The data was gathered using a researcher-made checklist that was created through combination of educational websites evaluation models (10 Cs, CARS and Kearsley). The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that educational goals of the courses in Roshd educational website are in an undesirable level, and the content, learning-teaching methods, evaluation methods, web page design and general part of the site are in a relatively desirable level.

The main purpose of this paper is reviewing the nature of diffusion and implementation of curriculum evaluation results in a curriculum system. First, we discuss the knowledge construction in the field of curriculum, and then we will try to answer the question of how the evaluation results can be implemented and diffused. In addition, the process of result diffusion is one of main topics for discussion in this paper.After that, different models of diffusion and implementation such as CIHR, OTAVA and the performance-directed process knowledge would be presented. Here, the emphasis would be on models that have been used at least from 1990's up to now. Finally, the issues related to the diffusion and implementation of evaluation results would be presented.