JOURNAL OF EDUCATION
Year:2005 | Volume:21 | Issue:2 (82)|Papers Count:8

A sample of 987 height school freshmen (488 girls and 499 boys) was selected from the four educational districts in Shiraz using the cluster sampling method. The instruments were "Math Anxiety Scale" and "Attitude towards Math Scale". Factor analyzing the data yielded that the math anxiety is constituted of four factors: Math and figure anxiety, math test anxiety, negative feelings toward math, and concerns about math. The attitude toward math also consisted of two factors of math, enjoyment and math valuing. School achievement was measured using the final grades in math class. A regression analysis showed that the strongest predictor for math achievement in the math enjoyment factor. In other words, students liking math and enjoying involvement in situations requiring usage of math achieve more in this subject findings also show that any increase in negative feelings toward math, and in math and number anxiety is accompanied with a decrease in math achievement. The implication for the educational practitioners is obvious: motivational factors, especially attitude toward math must be focused on, teaching methods should be directed toward making the subject interesting and reducing any negative feelings and anxiety.

Judging from the jargons used in today's educational circles, it seems an industrial mentality has dominated the field. This is indicative of the impact that the successes of the industrial sector have had on education. However, prior to adoption of terms such as educational industry or engineering, educational products and instructional output, and decisional of how to use these concepts in education, it would be more preferable to talk about how to do this through a discussion of Total Quality Management.TQM has been applied in many areas in education similar to those in the industry. However, using it in the very heart of the educational system, i.e. the teaching/ learning process has been rather overlooked. In this article an attempt is made to adopt Deming's set of fourteen principles of TQM in industry to education. At the end, a course syllabus constructed based on these principles is introduced.

The results of a field study conducted in the central province are reported herein. The main findings are the following: 47% of the elementary teachers are not that interested in engaging in continuous evaluation, most engagement is seen among geography, math, and science teachers, and least involvement is reported by teachers of Farsi, Quran, and Religion classes.Some teachers have shown ingenuities that are reported in this article. Finally practical suggestions are given in order to improve the status of continuous evaluation at the elementary school level. 

A sample of 165 high school students (89 girls and 76 boys) was selected through cluster sampling. Three questionnaires on personal information, personal identity, and religiosity were used to gather data. Data Analysis yielded the following results: There is a significant and reverse relation between religiosity and identity crisis. Same type of relation was found between school achievement and identity crisis. As for the gender differences, there were no differences between the two groups in religiosity, however girls seem to be having more of an identity Crisis.

Despite all efforts at the Ministry of Education to improve the educational system, many problems still looms over the area of schools management, especially at the high school level. The purpose of the research reported herein has been to compare the performances of two sets of high school principals in shiraz: those who have a university degree in educational administration and curriculum planning, and those graduated in other areas of study. To do so the opinions of teachers working with these two sets of principals were surveyed regarding the principal's skills in four areas of leadership, social, educational, and administrative skills.75 Principals and 375 associated teachers were selected randomly from among all such individuals in Shiraz. A questionnaire with 55 Likert scales was used and the gathered data wee analyzed statistically using the T- test. Results show that there is no significant difference between the two groups in the areas mentioned above. There were also no significant relations between the principals' performance and their gender or years of experience.