m. nazarzadeh zare

Institutions usually bring the technologies they need from their surrounding environments into the organization. Therefore, a university as one of the important social institutions, under the influence of the electronic revolution and the emergence of new technologies in its surrounding environment, has moved towards the use of multimedia systems and electronic education; however, the use of electronic education, despite countless opportunities, has also brought major problems and challenges, some of which have been mentioned in previous studies, including the lack of face-to-face communication and interaction between the educator and the learner. Hence, the solution offered in e-learning to face this problem is the blended learning approach. Studies have shown that various factors such as educational, environmental, institutional, and organizational factors are effective in applying blended learning, and not paying attention to any of them can cause the failure of this type of teaching and learning. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of institutional factors on the use of blended learning by the faculty members of Malayer University.

The present study was applied research in terms of purpose, cross-sectional in terms of time, and in terms of method of collecting the required data, it adopted a descriptive-correlation design using structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the present study included all the faculty members of Malayer University with the number of 153 people. Due to the limited size of the research community, all faculty members were tested, and finally, 140 faculty members participated in the study with a return rate of 92%. The tools of data collection were questionnaires of institutional factors and blended learning. For data analysis, descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean) and inferential (correlation test and path analysis) methods were used in SPSS version 22 and Smart PLS version 6 statistical software.

The findings obtained from the statistical analysis of the data indicated a positive and significant impact of the normative factor with a path coefficient (0.151) on the use of blended learning by the faculty members, and the mimetic factor with a path coefficient (0.413) on the use of blended learning by faculty members, and the coercive factor with a path coefficient (0.362) had an impact on the use of blended learning by faculty members. Also, the measurement and fit indices of the model indicated its appropriateness.

Overall, the study showed that institutional factors (normative factors, coercive factors, and mimetic factors) have a great impact on the use of blended learning by faculty members. Hence, considering the following suggestions can help to institutionalize the use of blended learning in the academic context, namely the establishment of regulations and internal laws regarding the use of blended learning in the teaching-learning process at universities, more culturalization in the use of blended learning in the teaching-learning process by faculty members, imitating successful universities and institutions in the field of implementing blended learning, training faculty members on how to apply blended learning in teaching, encouraging more faculty members to use blended learning, and finally considering more educational privileges for the use of blended learning in teaching by faculty members.

The outbreak of the Coronavirus posed a serious crisis to commercial and educational organizations and institutions. In the face of such a crisis, the transition from face-to-face to virtual education was one of the strategies of educational institutions, especially schools, and this caused increased additional work pressure on teachers as one of the pioneers of the teaching-learning process. Thus, in the face of such a situation, school leadership plays a very effective role in increasing the efficiency of individuals and reducing the tensions caused by rapid environmental changes. One of the leadership styles that can help school leaders achieve this is to use of an ambidextrous leadership style. Ambidextrous leadership is a new type of leadership style that consists of two different spectrums of leadership behaviors and uses open and closed leadership behaviors in a balanced and complementary way to deal with environmental changes. Ambidextrous leadership is related to increasing organizational agility and performance and means the ability to use both hands with the same power. Ambidextrous leadership can have many effects on self-efficacy, job attitude, etc.; so, the research on the effect of this style of leadership has been considered by many researchers in recent years. Given the lack of research on this style of leadership, especially in educational settings in Iran, the need for doing such a study was felt. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of ambidextrous leadership on teachers' job satisfaction and stress in virtual education with the mediating role of psychological empowerment.

To achieve this aim, the researchers used the correlational research method by structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the study included all primary school teachers in Takestan city. Considering the uncertainty of the actual number of teachers, we selected the maximum sample size (335 teachers) by using simple random sampling. Data collection was performed by using the ambidextrous leadership style questionnaire, the psychological empowerment questionnaire, the job satisfaction questionnaire, and the job stress questionnaire. Data analysis was performed by the statistical technique of structural equation modeling (confirmation path analysis) and Pearson correlation test in two statistical software SPSS and AMOS.

The findings of the study indicated the open leadership style on empowerment (0.637) had a significant and positive effect, the closed leadership style on empowerment(0.365) had a significant and positive effect, the empowerment variable on job stress (0.313) had a significant and negative effect, the closed leadership style on job stress (0.314) had a significant and negative effect, the open leadership style on job stress (0.449) had a significant and negative effect, the empowerment variable on job satisfaction (0.224)had a significant and positive, the closed leadership style on job satisfaction(0.350) had a significant and positive, the open leadership style on job satisfaction (0.235) had a significant and positive, also the job stress on job satisfaction (-0.327) had a significant and negative effect. Findings also revealed that the closed and open leadership style had an indirect and significant effect on job stress and job satisfaction through the empowerment variable, and the empowerment variable had an indirect and significant on job satisfaction through the job stress variable. In addition, the measurement and fit indices of the model also indicated the desirability of the model.

Overall, the results of the study showed that by using both ambidextrous leadership and empowerment in schools, we can reduce teachers' job stress and subsequently increase their job satisfaction. Therefore, this style of leadership can be used as a useful tool for effective leadership in schools.

Having interaction at the international level requires having the necessary competencies in this field. For this reason, a faculty member must have the necessary competencies in the international arena. Thus, the purpose of the study was to evaluate the competencies of faculty members of selected medical sciences universities in international interactions. 

This study was conducted with the quantitative approach by cross-sectional survey method.  ​In the study, 257 faculty members of the medical sciences universities of Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad, Tabriz, and Esfahan in five clusters (North, South, East, West, and Center) by cluster sampling method and during four months in 2020 were selected. The tool used for data collection was a researcher-made questionnaire that was sent electronically to the faculty members byGoogle Form. The validity  and reliability of the questionnaire were confirmed by two experts in the field of competency and Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.84 respectively. The data by statistical methods including, measures of skewness and kurtosis to check the normality, also a one-sample t-test was used by SPSS were analyzed.

Of the 257 faculty members who participated in the study, 52.1% were male and 47.9% were female. Findings showed that the standard deviation ± mean of the component of professional competency was 0.5910±3.38,the communication competency 0.6709±3.08, the intercultural competency 0.5854±3.84, and the intellectual competency 0.5058 ± 3.61, ​and considering the value of t at the level (p = 0.01), these findings were significant.

Given the faculty members of selected medical universities have the necessary competencies in the field of international interaction, it seems to pay attention to the mechanisms such as concluding memorandums of cooperation with prominent foreign universities, as well as, considering more points for the faculty members 'international activities in the promotion regulations can help to increase faculty members' international interactions.