فهرست مطالب mahnaz azad

EFL textbooks play a challenging role in underpinning or imposing certain ideological values, such as gender-related values on students. Thus, this inquiry examined Iranian high school teachers’ perceptions of the issue in mandated EFL textbooks (Vision series). This study adopted an exploratory descriptive method with a qualitative approach to collect and interpret the data. The population comprised all members of the Iranian high school EFL teachers’ channel from whom, thirty teachers were selected through a volunteer sampling method. As the study concurred with the COVID-19 pandemic, a researcher-made semi-structured interview was administered via WhatsApp and Telegram, and then, the responses were analyzed and interpreted using thematic analysis via the Nvivo 12 software. The data analysis showed that most teachers believed in the unequal representation of male and female characters in the series. Moreover, it was held that gender representation has educational effects on students' learning motivation, desire, and educational goals through the creation of gender stereotype roles. The findings revealed the permanence of male dominance in the textbooks and highlighted the must for the stakeholders to address gender inequalities as one of the most crucial sociocultural concerns of Iranian EFL educational textbooks.

This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of English language teachers regarding the representation of gender in the Vision series in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades of senior high schools in Iran. To gather data, a questionnaire was adapted from Yaqoubi Notash and Nouri (2016) and some items were added to meet the purpose of the study. It should be noted that this questionnaire was translated to Farsi to enhance the participants’ understanding with a reliability of .88 whose validity was confirmed by experts. Then, the questionnaire was distributed among 330 male and female teachers who had experienced teaching the mentioned textbooks. To obtain more accurate data, a semi-structured interview was also designed and implemented with 15 teachers. The data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results of the analyses of the questionnaire and teachers' interviews showed that the majority of the teachers believed the representation of males is significantly more than females’ in the textbooks which might be due to the traditional patriarchal and cultural views in this country. In addition, the teachers assumed that gender disparitycreates gender stereotypes in the minds of the students affecting their future academic and career choices and leads to biased modeling of the genders’ social roles. The results of the present study can raise the awareness of the materials developers, curriculum designers, and those who are involved in devising textbooks considering gender inequality and representation.

"Mental disorders", as a multifaceted phenomenon and a socio-cultural issue, is one of the most challenging subjects in cinema and television. This study intends to extract from the existing discourses in this field, the cultural approach represented in the films of the Iranian director "Hooman Seyedy". In this study, discourse analysis with "Pedam" approach is the method used for cultural representation of mental disorders. The results of this analysis show that Hooman seyedy, has chosen common features such as unusual behavior, clothing style and appearance different from the norm of society, their distrust of others and inability to interact healthy and a kind of loneliness and isolation of these people from society " for characters with mental disorders in his films as cultural characteristics to represent. The subject of "mental disorder" is portrayed as the main discourse of the films to portray the confusion of human nature in today's society.

 Women and their issues have received more media attention in recent years. Also, considering the issue of "mental disorders in women", as a multifaceted phenomenon and a socio-cultural issue, is one of the most challenging issues in cinema and television; Therefore, the present article intends to extract the cultural approach represented in the films of the nineties of Iranian cinema from the existing discourses in this field. 

 The method used for cultural representation of mental disorders in this study is discourse analysis with "PDAM" approach. 

 The results of this analysis show that directors for characters with mental disorders in their films have common characteristics such as weak, helpless and helpless women, unusual behavior, distrust of others and the inability to interact healthy and They have also chosen a kind of loneliness and isolation from society as cultural characteristics to represent. 

 The subject of "mental disorder in women" is portrayed as the main discourse of the films in order to portray women as more vulnerable in today's Iranian society. This dominant discourse is in line with the psychotherapeutic theory of feminism.

A great deal of individual difference with reference to learners’ beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors can be explained in terms of the learning style the individuals adopt during the learning process. These learning styles have been labeled initiating, experiencing, creating / imagining, reflecting, analyzing, thinking, deciding, acting, and balancing according to Kolb and Kolb (2013). This research was conducted to develop and validate a multidimensional structure of the Kolb learning style inventory v. 4.0 (KLSI 4.0) in an Iranian context. KLSI 4.0 which is conceptualized in Experiential Learning Theory was then developed and evaluated through a series of validation procedures. Eight hundred thirty-three EFL learners studying English as ESP in IAU East Tehran Branch participated in the main phase of this study. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) through Structural Equation Modeling validated the proposed nine types KLSI 4.0. The outcomes of the initial piloting of the KLSI 4.0 did not show an acceptable fit due to high degree of correlation between some factors under the broad construct of learning style. Three factors indicating the highest degree of correlation were thus merged and the model was run again with modified six-factor LSI. Findings confirmed that learning style is a multidimensional construct in which the six factors are conceptually related. Reliability and validity estimates were examined and provided satisfactory psychometric properties of the inventory. In fact, the six-factor-correlated model of KLSI 4.0 revealed an acceptable model fit. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research were also discussed. The CFA applied in the research is distinguished from the initial assumptions in the literature and is more straightforward than originally presumed. This paper might be therefore used as a starting empirical point for further cross-validation analyses and educational implications.

Recently, numerous studies have investigated the influence of technology use within the educational settings pointing that the perception of the students as well as the instructor towards technology use is indicative of how well technology might be integrated in instruction. Therefore, this study was designed to explore university lecturers’ perceptions toward instructional technology, their actual versus perceived ICT literacy, the extent to which they integrate technology in their instruction and the challenges they face in successfully integrating instructional technology in academic context. The study adopted a mixed method design and was of exploratory nature. The population consisted of 711 male and female university students studying in different majors including Science, Engineering, Humanities, and Art. Also, 111 instructors teaching different fields took part in the data collection process. Two different questionnaires were devised for the instructors and the students. Besides, for gathering more reliable data, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 51 instructors and 135 students together with an observation to give more depth to the data. The data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The study concluded that university lecturers had positive attitude toward ICT and were moderately proficient in the use of ICT while university students had different levels of ICT knowledge and were mostly willing to experience digital learning. However, some limitations were mentioned in the study which shows an urgent need for some measures to be taken for continuous training of university lecturers in ICT which in turn leads to training more knowledgeable digital generation.

Among the contributing factors to learners’ performance, personality traits and levels of parents’ educa- tion have been taken into account in this research. Accordingly, 440 learners, mostly pre-intermediate and a small number of intermediate EFL learners with the age range of 18-25, studying atIAU East Tehran Branch participated in this study. They were asked to complete the Big Five Personality Questionnaire as well as a socio-economic status (SES) sheet for their parents’ education levels. First, the measurement models for investigating the impacts of personality traits and parental education levels on participants’ achievement scores were drawn using the AMOS program. The data was analyzed by means of SEM through the CFA approach. The complete structural model for the Big Five personality factors, parents’ education levels, and students’ achievement scores fit well with the data while the measurement model for the levels of parents’ education did not adequately fit the data. Open-mindedness had a significant negative impact, conscientiousness did not have any significant impact, extraversion had a significant positive effect, agreeableness did not have a significant positive effect, and neuroticism had a slight posi- tive impact on students’ achievement scores. These findings showed that personality traits can be used to predict students’ achievement scores to some degree.

Self-regulated learning is among the factors receiving considerable attention in educational psychology. Moreover, parents’ education and their academic involvement have found to have their own places in learners’ academic success. Considering the importance of the issue, the present study probed the relationship between parents’ education levels and their academic involvement, with Iranian ESP learners’ self-regulation and language achievement. The participants of this study were 460 Iranian university learners selected out of 575 students. As the instruments of this study, a demographic data sheet, Ryan (2005) Parental Involvement Questionnaire, as well as the modified version of Tseng, Dornyei, and Schmitt’s (2006) self-regulatory scale were used. In order to analyze the data, Structural Equation Modeling was used through the AMOS program. The results of the proposed model demonstrating parents’ education levels, parents’ academic involvement, as well as learners’self-regulation and language achievement fit well with the data. The results of SEM showed that parents’ education levels positively and significantly correlated with the learners’self-regulation. Furthermore, the findings of path analysis showed a positive and significant indirect relationship between parents’ education and learners’language achievement. Therefore, it was concluded that parents’ involvement mediated the relationship between parents’ education levels and learners’self-regulation and language achievement.

This study explored the relationship among working memory (WM), speaking accuracy and length of utterance of Iranian Intermediate EFL learners. The data were collected from 38 female EFL learners whose age range was between 12 and 15 studying English at a language institute in Tehran. First, an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administrated to ensure the homogeneity of the participants and based on the results of the test thirty homogenous learners were selected as the main participants of the study. Next, a working memory capacity test developed by Daneman and Carpenter (1980) was administered to the participants. Later, the researcher administered a speaking test on a topic appropriate to the level of the participants which was taken from Top Notch 1 (Saslow & Ascher, 2011). Then, the researcher recorded their voices and transcribed them in order to calculate the number of lexical words the students could articulate based on a formula developed by Gilmore (2004). Speaking accuracy was also measured using a formula developed by Gilabert (2004); In fact, the students' performance was rated by two experienced teachers.  Then, the Pearson correlation formula was utilized to analyze the obtained data. The results revealed a significant correlation between working memory capacity and speaking accuracy. Based on the findings, no significant correlation was shown between working memory and length of utterance. And finally, no significant correlation was depicted between length of utterance and speaking accuracy.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of using motivation strategies on EFL teachers’ motivation and reflective teaching. In order to do this, 30 Iranian female EFL teachers who were the researcher’s colleagues and expressed their willingness to participate in this study were selected. The group filled out a reflective teaching questionnaire by Akbari, Behzadpour, and Dadvand (2010) and motivation strategies questionnairre by Chastain (1988) as the pretest at the outset of the study and subsequently sat for a workshop where the researcher introduced motivation strategies and techniques to them. Following the end of the workshop, the teachers went back to their routine teaching program for 15 sessions and the researcher administered the reflectivity questionnaire and motivation strategies questionnaire as the posttest to the 30 teachers after those 15 sessions. In order to test the null hypotheses, that is to check any significant difference in the degree of the reflective teaching and motivation of the group prior to and after the treatment, a paired samples t-test was conducted in this research. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the participants’ scores on the motivation pretest and posttest; favoring the posttest. Also,there was a significant difference between the participants’ scores on the reflective teaching pretest and posttest, favoring the posttest. Therefore, the results showed that motivation strategies significantly affect the teachers’ motivation and reflective teaching.