NEW THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION
Year:2009 | Volume:4 | Issue:4|Papers Count:9

Epistemology, as a branch of Philosophy, studies the process by which knowledge is obtained and evaluated. As such it can, in relation to the approach to truth and knowledge which are the main goals in education, open new vistas to planners and teachers alike. This applies to the original planners of Open and Distant Education as well, since the epistemological view of the time has informed the planners' perceptions of student, teacher, curriculum, and teaching/learning strategies, as the main constituents of these systems.In this paper, the relationship between epistemology and education, especially Open and Distant Education, is discussed and in the light of that, positivist, interpretive, and critical epistemological approaches are introduced. Furthermore, the two educational systems are portrayed in general and their requirements in relationship to the teaching/learning strategies are explored from these three epistemological perspectives.

To assess the feasibility of implementing the School Based Administration Project in the Guidance schools of Mash'had, 160 teachers and administrators were selected through multi-stage sampling and their views on their sense of mission and the extent of their participation and organizational commitment were explored using a questionnaire with 33 items. The results show that the research participants have the necessary level of all three characteristics. Hence, the implementation of the said project is feasible. At the end suggestions are made as to how to improve the schools' capacity in this regard.

To determine the extent of marital satisfaction among the wives of the imposed war veterans, a sample of 104 wives were given the ENRICH questionnaire. It was discovered that most wives are relatively satisfied with their marriage, yet there was no significant relationship between their total score on the marital satisfaction scale and their demographic characteristics. Furthermore, the total marital satisfaction scores showed the highest correlation with conflict resolution scores, while they had the lowest correlation with the religious orientation scores. Those with higher levels of satisfaction experienced fewer psychological problems. Overall, it can be said that the veterans' wives having strong religious beliefs and being receptive to the risks of physical and psychological damages are able to maintain a satisfying marital life irrespective of the number of children, extent of their husbands' disabilities, and age increase. Nevertheless, psychological support is recommended.

To explore the views of high school teachers and experts in Teaching English Language, a sample of 102 Sheeraazi teachers of high school English along with 13 experts was selected. A researcher made questionnaire was used for the larger group, while the smaller group was interviewed. Both questionnaires were considered valid by experts. The reliability of the first questionnaire was calculated to be 0.90. The data analysis was conducted using categorization and comparison. Results show that all respondents consider all three processes as barely useful. In other words neither the learning/teaching, nor the evaluation processes employed by teachers and students are doing what they are supposed to do.

In a content analysis of a sample of educational documents, indicators of educational liberalism were identified in educational foundations, goals, contents, and methods. In foundations signs are the emphases on learning for the sake of learning, development of free individual, the relation between knowledge and reality, and on rationality. As for the educational goals, the emphasis on values, critical thinking, nobility, and the development of all aspects of human beings are all indicative of educational liberalism. The same is true of the contents because they include the learning of things that come handy in life or add to the learners' knowledge, like history and literature. Finally the methodological indicators of liberalism are the use of dialectic method along side of induction, lecturing, questions and answers, and repetition and memorization.

To explore the relationship between self-regulated learning strategies, motivational beliefs, and students' academic achievement, a sample of 170 high school students in Oshnaveeyeh were selected through a cluster sampling method that completed the Motivational Learning Strategies questionnaire. Data analysis shows that the self regulated learning strategies are correlated with students academic achievement and as such the latter is predictable by all constituents of the former.

To study the effect of teachers written feedback on students' self-efficacy and math problem solving ability, 181 female 8 graders from three school districts in Tehran were selected using the cluster sampling method, and then randomly assigned to two groups. The experimental group received math teachers' written feedback while the control group received regular oral feedback. Both groups self efficacy and problem solving ability were initially assessed. Comparing the post test scores of the two groups show a significant improvement for the experimental group, indicating that teachers can learn how to give written feedback in order to improve students' self-efficacy and math problem solving ability.