JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY
Year:2005 | Volume:11 | Issue:3-4|Papers Count:12

The objective of this article was to investigate utilitarianism with respect to its implications for moral education. Utilitarianism is one of the two teleological theories, which, in contrast to egoism, puts great importance on people"s happiness, and which, despite deontology, lays great emphasis on common good. Based on utilitarianism, right rules and acts are those which promote highest common good and provide for the pleasure and happiness of the greatest number of individuals. This school, like certain others, believes in final goals for mankind. This goal involves human happiness whose realization requires the promotion of certain ethical dispositions such as considering other people"s rights, altruism, devotion, truthfulness, and righteousness in individuals. Utilitarianism implies a number of educational principles including the social nature of human- being, democracy, responsibility, justice, equality and individual freedom, whose promotion by the school may guarantee social happiness.

The present research was designed to compare the effects of cooperative learning and traditional instruction on students" academic performance, retention, achievement motivation and self- concept. An experimental field research method was employed. The target population of the study comprised Bushehr City high school students, and the sample consisted of 77 subjects randomly selected from the aforementioned population. Subjects were randomly divided into two groups: the cooperative and traditional learning groups. The instruments used in this study were: 1) A purpose -designed scale made for the measurement of learning and retention of both groups on Islamic Insight Book, 2) Giselle Achievement Motivation Scale for the measurement of achievement motivation, and 3) Rogers" Self-Concept Scale for the measurement of students" self-concept. Results showed significant differences between the two groups. More specifically, the Cooperative Learning Group performed significantly better than the Traditional Leaning Group in all indices (e.g., academic performance, retention, achievement motivation, and self-concept).

The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of the preschool version of the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) parents" and teachers" forms in a group of 304 preschool children (143 boys and 161 girls) aged 3 to 6.5 in Shiraz. Factor analysis followed by oblimin rotation led to factors comparable to the parents" and teachers" forms of Social Skills and Behaviour Problems subdomains reported by Gresham and Elliott (1990). The factor structure was not totally replicated for the teachers" form Behaviour Problem subdomain because Hyperactivity did not emerge in this study while two factors, Internalizing and Externalizing behaviours, did. Reliability of the scale was satisfactory.

The purpose of the present research was to examine the direct and indirect relationships of collective teacher efficacy, teacher"s characteristics, students" prior mathematics performance, socioeconomic status, gender, and ethnicity with students" (girls and boys) mathematics performance in fourth-grade of elementary schools in Ahvaz. In this study 300 students (150 girls and 150 boys) were selected randomly. Also, 100 teachers in fourth- grade and overall 300 teachers in all- grades were selected randomly. The students completed the Personal Characteristics Inventory, and teachers copmpleted the Teacher Characteristics Inventory, and Collective Teacher Efficacy Scale. The results showed that the direct and indirect paths of socioeconomic status, prior mathematics performance, and collective efficacy with mathematics performance were significant, but the direct and indirect paths of gender and ethnicity with mathematics performance were not significant. Moreover, the direct path between teacher"s characteristics and mathematics performance was not significant but the relationship between direct path of teacher"s characteristics and collective efficacy was significant. In sum, to examine the fitness of proposed model three models were tested.

This research was conducted to investigate the rate of the graduate students" use of IT at libraries and computer centers of Shiraz University. The research method applied to this study was a survey one. The findings of this study indicate the prevalent use of computer and Internet technology by the respondents. The rate of use of library softwares and CD- ROM was low among them. The respondents have used the IT for educational purposes and thesis and writing and translating articles to a great extent. The use of IT for attending internal as well as foreign seminars and writing and translating books is weak. The major problems faced by the respondents when using the IT are lack of facilities, low speed of retrieval, disconnection of the network, the need to learning how to use IT and limited time to access IT. The findings of the research showed that a very low percentage of the respondents (5.4%) do not use IT. Due to the fact that 94.6% of the respondents use IT, it seems necessery for planners to take this important issue into consideration.

In this research, on the basis of Thomas" five point scale (1977: 98-102) a survey asking for the opinions of the high-school principals in Yazd for the academic year 1380- 81 (2001/2002) was conducted. The main focus of the research was to find out how principals go about conflict management. The styles under survey were as follows; Forcing and Dominance, Accomodation, Avoidance, Compromising, and Collaboration. These styles determine to what extent the principals utilize their personal opinions in conflict management and how much they accept the opinion of others. From a total population of 102 subjects (53 male, 49 fenale) 60 principals (30 male, 30 female) were randomly selected for the survey. The data obtained were analyzed by using Fisher"s Z Test utilizing SPSS statistical software. A questionnaire consisting of 30 items in likert-type format was used. The items were constructed on the basis of Thomas theory, Rahim"s (1990) questions, and S. Robin"s questionnaire. The results of the study show the ranking of the styles advocated by the principals to be as follows; 1) collaboration, with 23 points; 2) compromising, 22 points; 3) accomodation, 15 points; 4) dominance, 13 points; 5) avoidance, 12 points. The results exhibit partial simlarities to those conducted in Iran and neighboring countries.

This survey concerns the implementation of "Total Quality Management" approach in organizational leadership to be performed by the administrators of libraries in Shiraz University. "TQM" system is a comprehensive focus on meeting and preceding the needs of the patrons. The main objective of this survey was a comparison of library managers" and specialists|" attitudes toward the state of "TQM" as it currently is and should ideally be in Shiraz University libraries. It considers the differences between these two groups" attitudes in a framework of Deming principles, and takes account of the differences in attitude of the total sample toward both the present and desirable states considering sex and level of education. The needed data were collected by using Total Quality Management Questionnaire. All the 110 experts and library administrators took part in the survey. However, only 89 persons (67 experts and 22 administrators) returned the forms. The results indicate that administrators have a higher attitude toward the present status of the libraries. There is a significant difference between experts" and administrators" attitudes in this respect. Also managers mean score on attitude toward ideal status is higher than that of the experts. Gender gave no rise to any meaningful difference either among the experts or managers. Level of education also created no significant difference across the whole sample. But a significant differnce in attitude toward current and ideal status was found on the basis of job positions.

The aim of this study was to investigate teaching conceptions, approaches and techniques at the Iranian higher education and consists of two parts. In the first and analytical part some of the developments which have affected the mission of the university in "postmodern" era are reviewed. Then through an analysis of the concept of teaching, some of the salient approaches to teaching are introduced. In the second part, the findings of a field investigation in which the teaching activities of 51 faculty members were directly observed are reported and discussed. The categorization of the data gathered through observation yielded two sets of teaching specifications: The first set comprises specealized, intellectual, and academic aspects of teaching, with the second set dealing with its interpersonal and affective features. The findings show a considerable similarity to the work of Lowman (1991) and Jackson et al (1999). The predominant teaching approach identified fits very well in teacher- centeredness/ content- orientedness teaching perspectives.