JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY
Year:2005 | Volume:12 | Issue:2|Papers Count:9

School- Based Management (SBM), rooted in the theoretical idea of participation, decentralization, authority delegation, and competition, believes that all school teachers, pupils, families and other stakeholders in the school should be involved in the process of school decision making. Bearing this in mind, with help of Lawler (1992) theory and other researchers views, the problem of SBM was addressed. The main aims of this study were to recognize major barriers of SBM in. Iran, particularly in public secondary schools of Ahvaz. The main questions were: 1) How much do teachers, principals and LEA authorities know about SBM? 2) How much teachers, principals and LEA authorities are agreed about SBM?3) To what extent is application of SBM necessary? 4) To what extent SBM is feasible in Ahvaz secondary schools? 5) What are the barriers and difficulties facing SBM? 6) What are the weaknesses and strengths of SBM? Byusing a questionnaire and holding interviews data were collected from secondary schools. On a 1-5 Likert- type scale the respondents mean scores were as follows:a) Knowledge about SBM, 3.09; b) agreement among respondents concerning decentralization and SBM, 3.49; c) importance of the application of SBM, 3.51; d) feasibility of application of the present SBM model, 2.51. Five factors were discovered to be ,the main barriers of SBM implementations, i.e: 1) political and power factor with an average of 3.80 (out of 5); 2) Structural and facilities factor, (3.79);3) principals and teachers knowledge and information factor (3.72);4) socio- cultural factor (3.52);and 5) management factor (3.24). It is concluded that the SBM scheme has not been developed in a suitable way and requires to be reconsidered by education policy makers. Suggestions are made toward smoothing the implementation of SBM in Ahvaz.

Two experiments were designed to investigate how students use examples and procedures to solve algebra word problems. In the first study the effect of teaching through example and procedure was investigated on the students algebra word problem solving performance.Participants were 73 girl students in their 3rd year of math-physics branch, secondary school. They were randomly assigned to three groups. The first group was instructed by presenting simple examples,the second group by procedure, whereas the third group was instructed by both procedure and simple example. No significant difference was observed in the performance of the three groups. In Experiment 2, three new conditions consisting of complex example, complex and simple examples,and complex example plus procedure were added to two of the conditions in Study 1, namely simple example condition and procedure condition. The 122 participants in Study 2 had similar characteristics to subjects in the first study. Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences among the five groups. Results show that adding examples at different levels of complexity to procedure improves the capability of students problem solving, which is in harmony with empirical and theoretical background.

This paper aimed to study the citation behavior of the students of the school of veterinary medicine at Shahid Chamran University in the period of 1376-1380 using citation analysis which is one of the most important method of scientometric techniques. The core journals in this study were determined and compared with the list of the ISI journals to find out their impact factor ranked. Also the subjects of the studied dissertations were identified and compared with the subject catalogue of the Vet CD database in order to identify the subject areas which were probably less considered.

From the available body of research findings and clinical experiences,it can be concluded that some stuttering children recover spontaneously, while others persist in their stuttering. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of clinical method versus spontaneous recovery method in treatment of young childrens stuttering with speech disfluency.Twenty two preschool stuttering children (three to seven years of age) were randomly selected from Towheed Psychological Counselling Center in Tehran. After forming 2 matched groups of 11 children each, one group received clinical method whereas the next eleven children (the second group) did not obtain direct treatment (spontaneous recovery method). Tape- recorded speech samples of 3-minute length were obtained from the children and disfluent words were counted. Results indicated a marked decline over time in the mean frequency of disfluency in the first group (clinical method).

This research attempted to investigatethe information needs and information-seeking behavior of experts at Sugarcane and By-Products Development Company, Khuzestan Province, to suggest ways of meeting these needs. The study also considered motivations to seek information, subjects sought, use of information resources, ways and channels of information- seeking, and the barriers to accessing information. The research is a descriptive (survey type) study, using a questionnaire with 28 items to collect data. Of the 250 copies of the questionnaire distributed, 158 were completed and returned, thus yielding a response rate of 63.2 percent. Descriptive statistics as well as analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey test were applied to analyse the findings of the study. The results of the study revealed that there are significant differences among experts in various departments and sites of the company in terms of information- seeking behavior. The results also showed that experts seek information to upgrade their knowledge, to use new technologies, and to update their general information. Experts mostly study in the fields of agriculture, accounting, civil and electrical engineering, respectively. The pattern of using information sources is as follows: Persian books (59.2%), Persian journals (51.9%), English books (41.1%), printed technical records and reports (41.1%), plans (37.3%),English journals (36.7%), theses (34.2%), CDs (27.8%), and floppies (24.1%). Among information channels, experts consult with friends and colleagues (72.7%), participate in conferences and seminars (44.3%). But among formal channels, they prefer to use personal libraries (62.2%) and Sugarcane Scientific and Technical Information Center (55.1%). However, use of agricultural databanks stands at the lowest rate (1.9%). Experts also prefer to browse book-shelves and refer to the librarians rather than use library catalogs independently.It was also revealed that 84.8% of experts depend on the Sugarcane Scientific and Technical Information Center for their research, although most of them use the library only once in more than a month. The barriers to use the Sugarcane Scientific and Technical Information Center effectively are: poor horary collection, long daily working hours, long distance between the Sugarcane Scientific and Technical Information Center and the plants, and time constrain.

This study was carried out to identify the problems of learning to write composition faced,by the guidance school students in Khuzestan Province (Iran), in the aCademic year 1379/80 (2000/2001). 1500 students and 300 teachers were randomly selected from grades 1-3 of the guidance schools of this province. Problems were explored and listed by reviewing relevant research literature and by preparing and implementing 2 questionnaires to record the views of both teachers and students. Factor analysis was subsequently applied to the results of the questionnaires to establish main problems from the viewpoints of students and teachers. The students questionnaire yielded four factors: 1) structural problems, 2) administrative problems, 30 instructional problems, and 4) giudance and topic selection problems.From the teachers standpoint 3 factors were found: 1) writing skills problems, 2) Teaching problems, and 3) school problems. Teachers considered the most important aims of writing composition to be the development of thinking and imagination, ability to write and an opportunity to express ideas on the part of students.

The purpose of this article is to investigate important goals and strategies of Futuristic Education and consists of two parts. In the first part after reviewing the history of futurism, three main methods of futurism are introduced and their relationships to education discussed.These three methods of futurism are: analytic, visionary and participatory. In the second part, based on the contemporary futurist notions, six general trends for world transformations in the 21st century are identified.These trends are: quick progress of science and technology, globalization, the threat to environment, spread of IT, propagation of democracy,and increase of political and cultural awareness of nations and ethnic groups. After stating these six trends, some of the challenges facing educational systemsin confronting them are discussed and strategies for adjusting the educational systemto cope with these changes are explored.