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Critical Thinking (CT) which has been defined as the employment of cognitive skills or strategies for obtaining sound conclusions (Halpern, 2013) has been the subject of different Second Language (L2) studies at national and international levels. The aim of the present study was to provide a meta-analysis on the (quasi) experimental studies of critical thinking in second language education in Iran. To this end, from a total of 168 studies published between 2011 and 2020, 24 studies were selected based on the inclusion-exclusion criteria. The included studies were coded to calculate the mean effect size of the studies. The results show that 1) L2 teaching was positively effective for the CT development in Iran; 2) the most beneficial aspects of L2 teaching on CT promotion were related to teaching L2 speaking and L2 rhetorical strategies; 3) concerning L2 proficiency level, L2 instruction was most advantageous for advanced students’ CT developments; 4) regarding the age groups, L2 teaching contributed the most growth in CT levels for learners in the age group of 10-14 years, and 5) L2 teaching was most effective for the undergraduate students compared to other educational levels. The findings can be beneficial for pursuing the next moves in L2 research, education, and planning educational policies in Iran.

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In spite of the potential merit of technology-enhanced education in offering an innovative educational game in the arena of English teaching and learning, they have not garnered much momentum in terms of practical research, particularly in ELT speaking domain and their potential role in the Covid-19 pandemic and post-pandemic eras. This constitutes a substantial gap in the extant corpus of literature, which will be addressed in the current study by exploring the short- and long-term impacts of immersive virtual reality  and space team ESL games on the speaking abilities of Iranian EFL learners. To this light, 54 basic EFL students from private language institutions in Urmia were selected through convenience sampling and an intact group design. Three classes were randomly exposed to two treatments, encompassing virtual reality, space team, and a control group receiving traditional instruction. The participants were pre-tested with the IELTS speaking test before receiving the treatment, and the same instrument was utilized for post-tests and delayed post-tests. In contrast to the traditional group, the results demonstrated that both immersive virtual reality and space team games enhanced students' short- and long-term oral performance. The findings of this study could be well-regarded as an important proposal for considering game-based instruction as an integral component of ELT classrooms and a technique for promoting language proficiency in non-native contexts.In spite of the potential merit of technology-enhanced education in offering an innovative educational game in the arena of English teaching and learning, they have not garnered much momentum in terms of practical research, particularly in ELT speaking domain and their potential role in the Covid-19 pandemic and post-pandemic eras. This constitutes a substantial gap in the extant corpus of literature, which will be addressed in the current study by exploring the short- and long-term impacts of immersive virtual reality  and space team ESL games on the speaking abilities of Iranian EFL learners. To this light, 54 basic EFL students from private language institutions in Urmia were selected through convenience sampling and an intact group design. Three classes were randomly exposed to two treatments, encompassing virtual reality, space team, and a control group receiving traditional instruction. The participants were pre-tested with the IELTS speaking test before receiving the treatment, and the same instrument was utilized for post-tests and delayed post-tests. In contrast to the traditional group, the results demonstrated that both immersive virtual reality and space team games enhanced students' short- and long-term oral performance. The findings of this study could be well-regarded as an important proposal for considering game-based instruction as an integral component of ELT classrooms and a technique for promoting language proficiency in non-native contexts.
 

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Although critical pedagogy (CP) is a worthwhile approach to education, not much attention has been paid to its application in online courses. Acknowledging its pivotal role, this study intended to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ awareness of CP and explore the possible effects of teaching experience on their awareness of CP via a CP questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. Furthermore, to evaluate teachers’ actual classroom application of CP, online EFL classes were observed. The results indicated that teachers’ awareness of the significance of CP principles did not help them fully implement the principles in their online teaching practices. A significant relationship between teaching experience and some subscales of CP principles was also found. The findings of this study can offer some implications for English teachers in the post-method era to rethink their previous critical views towards English language teaching and their roles as facilitators.
 

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Being a promising component of educational and occupational success, the inclusion of critical thinking in various aspects of schooling has gained momentum in recent years. Therefore, the present study investigated the Iranian 12th grade English language final examinations based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy in terms of “knowledge dimension” and “cognitive process dimension” over the last five years of exam administration. Using a quantitative content analysis design, the items of the aforementioned examinations administered from 2019 to 2023 were analyzed. The findings of the study showed that the frequency of “conceptual knowledge” items in the “knowledge dimension” and “understand” items in the “cognitive process dimension” were significantly higher based on the results of Chi-square test. Moreover, the frequency of items relevant to lower-order thinking skills was found to be considerably higher than that of the items related to higher-order thinking skills, although instances of top cognitive level items could be traced in these examinations. It was also revealed that there was no considerable change with regard to the inclusion of the two dimensions of Bloom’s revised taxonomy over the five years of administration under study. The results of this study can be a fillip for policy makers, textbook developers, and teachers to accelerate the required changes regarding the consideration of inclusion of critical thinking-based tasks in textbooks, lesson plans and examinations.
 

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The aim of the present study was to examine whether Metacognitive Intervention (MI) in their first language (L1) had any significant effect on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ Working Memory (WM) in listening comprehension when they received it. In addition, it measured whether gender had any effect on EFL learners’ listening comprehension when they receive MI through L1. To this end, 60 Iranian EFL learners were selected through a Quick Placement Test and were assigned into two male and female experimental groups. These experimental groups received an eight-week intervention program, designed by the pedagogical cycle proposed by Goh and Vandergrift (2022). After the metacognitive intervention in L1, two posttests including a working memory capacity test and a listening comprehension test were administered. The findings indicated that there was a significant effect on EFL learners’ working memory in listening comprehension after they received MI in L1. It was also found that gender had a significant effect on the EFL learners’ working memory and listening comprehension when they receive MI in L1. The findings might contribute to assisting language instructors to adopt strategy-based approaches to teaching listening. Furthermore, curriculum designers and ELT policymakers might consider metacognitive intervention as an effective teaching approach and add it to EFL learners’ curriculum.

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Over the past decades, empirical studies regarding the application of data-driven learning (DDL) and its’ role in second and foreign language learning have increased. At the same time, several studies have investigated the association between working memory (WM) and different aspects of L2 and found that WM plays a significant role in the language performance of L2 learners, as SLA processes rely on cognitive resources. Nevertheless, the findings of such research are inconclusive. The role of WM in the relationship between DDL and second/foreign language learning is also a neglected area. Drawing on data from 84 Iranian female EFL learners, aged between 20 to 24, on three different measures of WM capacity (digit span, number-letter, and flanker), the findings of the present study showed that first, DDL was a significant predictor of English academic lecture comprehension. Second, regardless of which WM measure to use, WM was not a significant predictor of English academic lecture comprehension; and the interaction effect between DDL and WM was not a significant predictor of the students’ English academic lecture comprehension. That is, WM did not moderate the effect of DDL on the students’ comprehension of English academic lectures. Altogether, the results suggested that learning L2 at high levels of English academic lecture comprehension was mostly contingent upon automatic processing. The findings of this study may have implications for research and practice in second/foreign language teaching and learning, and more specifically in the application of DDL for L2 learners. 

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Considering EFL teachers’ identities and emotions as discursive practices through a post-structuralist lens offered by the concept of navigation of emotions, this study sought to explore EFL teachers’ emotional experience in online classes during online education to examine the way their emotional navigation helped them negotiate their identities. The participants, including 17 Iranian EFL teachers, working at universities in the West, North, and East of Iran, were chosen using purposeful sampling. To generate data, in-depth interviews and personal documents were used, which were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. The participants spoke of the experience of mixed emotions, creating the sense of ambivalence, which offered the possibility of dialectic thinking for reconciling contradictory views and questioning the existing dominant and preconceived ideas. Moreover, they navigated their emotions through emotional reflexivity and positive reframing. While emotional reflexivity, as a process of self-confrontation, consisted of relational struggles and agency, reframing, as an example of deep acting, entailed emotional resonance or a sense of aliveness and connectivity as well as a possibility for stressing the transpersonal attachment, as a novel concept to be addressed in teaching English. The role of positive emotions in enriching language learning processes, which is mainly ignored in language education, was underscored because the cultivation of positive emotions in English language learners increases their intrinsic motivation, enhances their engagement, and creates a sense of belonging to the target language.

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Diagnostic Formative Assessment (DFA) has already established its applicability and necessity in second language teaching practice and research as a legitimate supplement to summative assessment. However, examples of practical implementations of DFA informing SLA research and an investigation of the detailed processes involved, especially when it comes to productive skills such as speaking in tertiary educational settings are rather scarce. Therefore, focusing on the formality dimension, as a rather neglected component in DFA, the present quasi-experimental study set out to compare the effects of formal and informal DFA on Iranian EFL learners’ oral fluency and accuracy at university level. For this purpose, a homogeneous group of 52 male and female L2 learners were assigned to two experimental conditions and after a speaking pre-test developed and scored based on IELTS speaking tasks, went through four months of formal and informal DFA based on four reiterative stages of Observation, Initial Assessment, Hypothesis Checking, and Decision Making. Upon the post-test, the results of ANCOVAs showed that both treatments equally contributed to learners’ development of oral fluency and accuracy, indicating that traditional skepticisms towards informal DFA must be revisited and they can serve as appropriate supplements to more formal approaches whenever necessitated by the instruction. EFL practitioners are recommended to take these rather broad, flexible, and convenient informal DFA practices into consideration and decide on their exact choices based on the particularities of the context, situation, and individual learners, which leads to an expansion in their pedagogical options.
 

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Smallholder farmers in northern Punjab struggle to adopt sustainable practices like essential oil extraction, despite their potential to improve livelihoods. Core elements from theory of planned behavior, technology acceptance model, and innovation diffusion theory are amalgamated to develop an adoption model, which is subsequently analyzed using structural equation model. The results unveil significant mediating effects involving attitudes (perceived usefulness, easiness), normative concerns (social influence), and indicating maximum variation (R²) regarding by-product preparation (0.76) and steam distillation (0.65). The model successfully accounts moderating effects of socioeconomic variables, indicating a robust association among latent variables. Hence, improving the adoption behavior among smallholders necessitates a focus on socio-psychological and socioeconomic factors.

 

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Remarkable progresses of science and extensive development of modern technologies have led academic ability to become one of the tools of power. Accordingly, governments are trying to promote their higher education system in such a way that their position would improve on the basis of its performance. One of the most effective ways is to develop a comprehensive and integrated model for evaluation and ranking of universities and higher education institutions. Reaching such a model needs identifying factors and criteria that are related to evaluating the universities performance, choosing compatible factors with Iran’s higher education system, classification of the criteria and finally, representing them in a model. In this research, according to the literature review and expert’s point of view, eight factors were presented as the basic parts of the model as follows: educational, research, cultural, student, management and human resource, information technology, quality assurance and educational and research space factors. By using factor analysis, the extracted criteria were classified according to these eight factors and the final model was presented. The use of this model will cause integrating the system of performance evaluation of universities and higher education institutions. It will further help them to pursue their competition in such a way that consequently help the country to reach the desired scientific capability.

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Background: Osteoporosis is one of the most common metabolic bone diseases. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a walking education program based on the health belief model (HBM) on osteoporosis among women. Material and Methods: In this quasi-experimental research design, 120 patients (60 experimental and 60 control),who were registered with the health centers in Fasa City of Fars Province, Iran, participated in the study in 2014. A questionnaire consisting of demographic information and HBM constructs was used at pre-intervention, immediately after their intervention, and then six months later. Bone mineral density (BMD) was recorded at the lumbar spine and femur prior to and six months post-intervention. Data were analyzed using SPSS19' through 'chi-square test, independent t-test, repeated measure ANOVA at a significance level of 0.05. Results: Immediately and six months after the intervention, the experimental group showed increased in knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers perceived, self-efficacy, perceived internal cues to action and walking performance compared to the control group. Six months after the intervention, the value of lumbar spine BMD T-Score in the experimental group increased to 0.127, while in the control group it decreased to -0.043. The value of the hip BMD T Score in the intervention group increased to 0.125 and in contrast, it decreased to-0.028 in the control group. Conclusions: This study showed the increased knowledge and walking behavior regarding walking benefits could improve bone density. Therefore, HBM model can be a basic framework for designing and 'carrying out' educational interventions for women’s osteoporosis.

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In this research,nanocomposite coatings based on epoxy containing pristine graphene oxide and starch-modified graphene oxide are prepared and characterized by Fourier transfer infrared spectroscopy, andtheir crosslinking behavior is studied using nonisothermal differential scanning calorimetry.These nanocomposites, because of having platelet-like nanomaterials inside and their organic origin, can be applied as coating on metal surface in diverse industries.The reason behind using starch was its natural basis and abundance of hydroxyl groups in its structure which can take part in crosslinking reaction with epoxide. Neat epoxy systems having amine curing agent, and nanocomposites containing epoxy, amine curing agent, andpristine or starch-modified graphene oxide nanosheets were cure at different heating rates to assess their curing behavior. Change in hearing rate of test caused change in onset and peak temperature of the exotherm curves and consequently heat of reaction changed. It was observed that the presence of the graphene oxide nanosheets hindered the crosslinking reactions, while surface modification of them with starch natural polymer compensated for such a hindrance via catalytic role of starch, and increased crosslink density of system. 

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Aim: Tobacco use is one of the major causes of death worldwide and the most preventable risk factor of the coronary heart disease. The purpose of this study was to determine attitudes, risk perception and perceived vulnerability toward to water pipe (WP) smoking among male students in Zarandieh city of Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out on 400 male adolescents in 2011-2012. A multiple-stage sampling protocol was used. The participants completed a self-report questionnaire about demographics, knowledge, attitude and beliefs about WP smoking and their tobacco use background. Data were analyzed by SPSS16. Findings: The prevalence of WP smoking was 72 (18%). Also 50% of participants believed water pipe smoking is less harmful compared to cigarettes. The mean score of knowledge, attitude, and risk perception for non smokers was higher from smokers (knowledge 4.9±2.1, attitude 19.5±4.3 and risk perception 18.6±3.3 versus 3.4±1.5, 15.6±5.5 and 15.4±4.3 respectively), whereas smokers reported a fairly high level of perceived stress and depression (perceived vulnerability). Conclusion: Noticing the side effects of tobacco use and the high prevalence of incorrect perceived WP smoking beliefs among students, provision of educational programs for the correction of the beliefs of students regarding WP smoking is recommended.

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Introduction: The main purpose of organizing space in each country is, firstly, providing an optimal service to the maximum of citizens and, secondly, managing the people who live in a country. Despite numerous attempts, geographical space of Iran is away from the spatial justice and the center-periphery pattern is the dominant pattern of its spatial relationships. The aim of this study was to investigate the foundations of spatial injustice in Iran. This paper with analytical–descriptive method and relying on the library resources tried to identify and classify the factors affecting the spatial injustice in Iran.
Conclusion: Spatial injustice in Iran comes from two main areas, including the natural, cultural, social, and economic conditions of any geographic location (the inherent characteristics of the regions), and the political economy of space, decisions of policy makers, and economic planners. The peripheral areas with 16 provinces and central areas with 14 provinces (including Alborz province) form the political space of Iran. Peripheral areas of the country include about 50% of area and 50.7% of the population, showing that 50% of development of the country should be concentrated in border areas so that regional balances are established in the spatial pattern of Iran. The focus of facilities and services in the center causes the remoteness of some provinces and their exclusion from these benefits.

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The quality of urban spaces and the presence of residents are some of the primary issues of current urbanism, as the dominance of vehicles has diminished the commuting opportunity for different social groups and the liveliness of urban spaces. This is especially true for urban spaces where once acted as children’s playground and now have turned into vehicle routes, pushing their former function to the sides. In the dense landscape of district 10, with its insufficient open urban spaces, this issue is even more pronounced, doubling the need for creating urban spaces accommodating children. Tactical urbanism is a general term describing such urban interventions regarding different qualities (e.g. the scale of the project, provisional measures for reusing the unused potentials of cities, providing privileges and support, unofficial actions within legal bounds, or attention to and revitalizing abandoned spaces) and has been further extended in specific academic fields such as traffic engineering

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Spending leisure time under the influence of economic-social developments and global values ​​is one of people's concerns. This research aimed to compile the political relations of serious leisure with the intention of travel and mediation of place attachment among men and women trekking Tehran's Tochal Mountain. The research method was a descriptive correlation implemented in the field. The statistical population of the research is trekking tourists who stay 12 nights a year at the resorts of this mountain. PASS software was used to determine the sample size. Finally, 275 samples participated in the research. In order to collect data, the questionnaires of Gould et al. (2008), Ramkinson et al. (2013) and Zhang et al. (2016) were used. In order to analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistical methods were used using SPSS version 25 and Lisrel version 8.8 software. The results showed that the two changes of serious leisure and place attachment could predict approximately 24% of the acceptance change related to travel intention. For this reason, one of the important factors for increasing people's intention to travel for leisure activities is place attachment. Also, the findings show no difference between male and female trekkers of Tochal mountain in terms of serious leisure, place attachment and travel intention score.