Educational Technology - Teacher Education
A Ramazani; Z. Talebi
Abstract
Background and Objectives Today, technology has an important role to play in regulating society's lifestyle. People's lives are dominated by an information environment because of rapid technological progress in computers, the Internet, and smartphones. Information and communication technology (ICT) is ...
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Background and Objectives Today, technology has an important role to play in regulating society's lifestyle. People's lives are dominated by an information environment because of rapid technological progress in computers, the Internet, and smartphones. Information and communication technology (ICT) is a special branch of IT facilitating access to information. ICT can help to improve teachers' teaching experiences and prepare them for the demands of the 21st century. To be effective in the use of ICT, teachers are required to have adequate self-efficacy teaching skills. ICT self-efficacy is the concept of an individual's belief that he or she can use information and communication technologies for specific tasks. The skills of information literacy and digital literacy are required for teachers to develop their own ability to use ICT. With this consideration, the relationship between information literacy and digital literacy of preservice teachers and their ability to use ICT for learning purposes is investigated in this study.Materials and Methods: In this study, a survey research design was employed as the methodology. Data were collected using online questionnaires, and the collected data were analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). To gather data for this study, an online survey comprising two questionnaires was administered to students enrolled in teacher training programs at Farhangian University in Zanjan, Iran in 2023. One of the frameworks used as a questionnaire was rigorously developed and validated by Pinto and Markauskaite et al., while the other one was taken from the Global Framework of Reference on Digital Literacy Skills. Participants were chosen from study groups which were selected through stratified cluster sampling. Out of 1700 preservice teachers in two branches of Farhangian University (Alzahra and Shahid Beheshti), 313 preservice teachers were selected as the representatives (which was calculated based on the Morgan Table). To investigate the correlation between latent variables, survey data have been analyzed using CFA. For the evaluation of the proposed framework, structural equation modeling (SEM) was also used.Findings: The outcomes of the CFA and SEM analysis revealed that how pre-service teachers perceive their information literacy directly and positively affects their perception of digital literacy. Additionally, the results showed that pre-service teachers' perceived information literacy has a direct and positive influence on their self-confidence in using ICT for teaching, also known as ICT self-efficacy. Furthermore, the research findings indicated that the way pre-service teachers perceive their digital literacy directly and positively impacts their self-confidence in utilizing ICT for teaching. However, when compared to perceived digital literacy, the perceived information literacy of preservice teachers has a more pronounced effect on their ICT self-efficacy in the context of teaching.Conclusions: The research findings emphasize the importance of giving priority to the development of information literacy and digital literacy skills for pre-service teachers in the field of education. This is because these skills are strongly correlated with higher levels of ICT self-efficacy. The study also underscores the necessity for teacher training and professional development programs that specifically target the enhancement of information literacy and digital literacy. By focusing on these literacies, such programs have the potential to improve preservice teachers' ICT self-efficacy in teaching and enhance the effective utilization of ICT in educational settings.
Information literacy
S. Kalvari Janaki; A.S., Khakbaz; M. Pourjamshidi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Information literacy refers to enabling individuals to determine when they need information and also having the ability to store, evaluate information, and using it effectively when needed. Teaching information literacy through the curriculum is one of the issues that has been ...
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Background and Objectives: Information literacy refers to enabling individuals to determine when they need information and also having the ability to store, evaluate information, and using it effectively when needed. Teaching information literacy through the curriculum is one of the issues that has been considered by curriculum planners in recent years. For this reason, educational systems in different countries have been trying different ways to equip people in communities with information literacy skills. Similarly, in our country, paying attention to teaching information literacy in curricula has been seen in the document of fundamental transformation of education. Two of the courses through which information literacy can be developed are Persian and writing courses. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to investigate the status of information literacy in Persian and writing textbooks at the first year of high school.Methods: The research method in this study was content analysis with a quantitative approach. The statistical population included Persian and writing textbooks of the seventh, eighth and ninth grades of the first year of high school (academic year 2018-2019), on the whole comprised of six textbooks. The sampling method in this study was purposeful sampling method and the sample size was equal to the size of the population, because all six books were analyzed. The research instrument is the standard checklist of information literacy, extracted from the checklist of Lotfi Maher (2010). This checklist includes eight components of feeling the need for information and how to express it, gathering information and search strategies, understanding, internalizing and recording information, the correct usage of information, organizing information, evaluating and analyzing information, being successful and laying emphasis on social, economic and legal aspects of information. Indicators of descriptive statistics including frequency, frequency percentage, tables and graphs were used to analyze the data.Findings: The results showed that although quantitatively, on the average, about one third of the messages of all these textbooks (35.45%) had paid attention to the components of information literacy; the components of information literacy were not explicitly addressed, and information literacy content was more implicitly included in these books. Meanwhile, the status of writing textbooks in terms of information literacy components was better than the Persian textbooks, and grade 8 writing textbook with a frequency of 51.82 had the first rank and eighth grade Persian textbook with 23.84% had the lowest rate of information literacy messages among all the studied textbooks respectively. Among the components of information literacy, the fourth component (correct usage of information) was ranked first with the highest percentage and the eighth component (laying emphasis on the social, economic and legal aspects of information) was not considered at all. Very little attention was paid to the seventh (success) and the sixth (information evaluation) components.Conclusion: The results make it clear that reviewing these textbooks in terms of information literacy messages is necessary for curriculum planners. In this regard, it is suggested that texts or activities would be added to the content of these books to encourage students to conduct research and refer to various sources of information. It is also necessary to develop information literacy skills more explicitly in these books.
TVET
S. Kadkhoda; N. Nastiezaie
Abstract
Background and Objectives: After the declaration of a state of emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in late 2019, countries took measures to control the pandemic, such as full quarantine or the implementation of social distance. One of the action measures taken in the field of education by many ...
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Background and Objectives: After the declaration of a state of emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in late 2019, countries took measures to control the pandemic, such as full quarantine or the implementation of social distance. One of the action measures taken in the field of education by many countries including our country, Iran, was the closure of schools and higher education centers. As a result, the concern to develop and implement curricula for continuing education at home and under the quarantine became the biggest challenge for education systems, and the issue of e-learning became very important. Among the numerous factors that can affect virtual learning, in this study, only two factors of information literacy and the teachers’ attitudes toward virtual learning are discussed. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate teachers' information literacy and its relationship with their attitude toward e-learning.Methods: The research method was descriptive-correlation. The statistical population of the study included 152 teachers in Nikshahr [Sistan and Baluchestan province] in the academic year 2020-2021. 109 teachers were selected through random-stratified sampling in terms of gender and teaching level and based on Cochran sampling formula. The data collection was based on questionnaires of information literacy (in the areas of ability to determine the scope and nature of information, ability to effectively access information, ability to critically evaluate information, ability to use the information purposefully and ability to understand the legal and economic aspects of using information) and attitudes toward e-learning (with components of feeling of self-sufficiency, feeling of desire, feeling useful, intention to use e-learning, feeling satisfied and the tendency to multimedia education). One-sample t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression were used to analyze the data by using SPSS software.Findings: The results showed that that teachers' information literacy in the areas of ability to determine the scope and nature of information, ability to effectively access information, ability to critically evaluate information critically, ability to use information purposefully and ability to understand the legal and economic aspects of using information is lower than the average level; there was no significant difference in comparing the level of information literacy of teachers in terms of demographic characteristics other than gender [superiority of female teachers' information literacy]; teachers' attitudes toward e-learning and its components (feeling of self-sufficiency, feeling of desire, feeling useful, intention to use e-learning, feeling satisfied with the e-learning system and tendency to use multimedia education) were positive; There was a significant positive relationship between teachers' information literacy and their attitudes toward e-learning and information literacy had the ability to predict 73.4% of variance of attitudes toward e-learning.Conclusion: According to the low level of teachers' information literacy in the areas of ability to determine the scope and nature of information, ability to effectively access information, ability to critically evaluate information, ability to use information purposefully and ability to understand the legal and economic aspects of using information and its positive relationship with the attitude to e-learning, holding in-service training courses on information literacy based on the required standards for holding such courses is recommended. It is also recommended to policy makers and curriculum designers of the Ministry of Education to design and implement information literacy courses for teacher training courses.
Educational Technology
M. A. Ghashami; F. Nasiri
Abstract
Background and Objectives: The progress and development of a country depends, more than anything, on its human resources. It is a human force that, with the power of thought contemplation/thinking and the optimal use of material resources, causes the progress of a society. These cases have led policymakers ...
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Background and Objectives: The progress and development of a country depends, more than anything, on its human resources. It is a human force that, with the power of thought contemplation/thinking and the optimal use of material resources, causes the progress of a society. These cases have led policymakers and thinkers to pay more attention to the concept of entrepreneurship so that the last model of development is considered to be the development arising from entrepreneurship. Therefore, the need for entrepreneurial graduates and students has increased and the goal of many prestigious universities in the world is to nurture students and consequently entrepreneurial graduates. Various factors influence the formation of entrepreneurial behavior among which self-efficacy is one of the most important factors that affect entrepreneurial behavior. Self-efficacy is one of the cognitive talents of entrepreneurship Therefore, recognizing the factors related to students' entrepreneurial behavior, such as communication skills and information literacy, can provide a good platform for the development of entrepreneurial attitude and behavior and, finally, by cultivating these talents, the existing fields of entrepreneurship can be exploited utilized and positive results consequences in higher education can be achieved. The aim of this study was to investigate examining the relationship between communication skills with students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy with the mediating role of information literacy.Methods: The research method is descriptive-correlational. The statistical population included 6701 undergraduate students of Bu Ali Sina University, 364 people using stratified random sampling method based on Krejcie and Morgan table were selected. Standard questionnaires of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, communication skills and information literacy were used to collect research data. The validity of the questionnaires was calculated using content and face validity, and its reliability was calculated through Cronbach's alpha coefficient and was estimated to be 0.95, 0.85 and 0.95, respectively. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.Findings: Findings showed that all relationships between variables are significant and the theoretical model of the research is approved and accepted as the final model. The mediating role of information literacy was also revealed and the relationship between communication skills and information literacy and its components was positive and significant and communication skills and its components were predictors of information literacy. There is also a positive and significant relationship between communication skills and entrepreneurial self-efficacy and its components.Conclusions: There is a relationship between communication skills and students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy with the mediating role of information literacy. The present study, like any other research, was faced with limitations, such as limitation of using the questionnaire as the only data collection tool and not using other tools as well as geographical and educational restrictions. Therefore, it is suggested that the present study had better be conducted in other geographical areas and educational courses so that generalizability power of the findings can be increased. In line with the findings of the present study, it is suggested that by holding workshops and training classes, students can be introduced to appropriate communication methods and skills and be empowered in this field. It is recommended that the officials and professors, considering the important effects of communication skills and information literacy, primarily pay more attention to this important issue and follow them more in order to be a suitable model for students. The next suggestion is that the university should provide more appropriate access and optimal use of information.
e-learning
M.S. Ghoraishi khorasgani; M.S. Karimi Mehrabadi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: MOOCs as a form of e-learning, with their great potential and capacity in learning and teaching, can meet different needs of a diverse group of learners. Therefore, universities can utilize it as an effective educational tool in their educational and research courses and help ...
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Background and Objectives: MOOCs as a form of e-learning, with their great potential and capacity in learning and teaching, can meet different needs of a diverse group of learners. Therefore, universities can utilize it as an effective educational tool in their educational and research courses and help improve the quality of their education. Faculty members are among the most important pillars of the university and, accordingly, they play a major role in knowledge transfer and learning; therefore, it is necessary for faculty members to be aware of the latest methods of teaching such as MOOCs as well as knowledge acquisition and information literacy in this field. As a result, the present study has been conducted with the aim of investigating the MOOC-based information literacy of the faculty members of Al-Zahra University. Methods: The research approach used for the study is quantitative; the method is of descriptive-survey type, with a practical purpose. The research population includes the faculty members of Al-Zahra University. Through quota stratified sampling and based on Morgan table, among the 381 faculty members, 181 individuals were selected as the research sample. To collect data, based on the theoretical foundations and research background, a researcher-made questionnaire was developed with a five-point Likert scale (very high, high, medium, low and very low). In order to measure the validity of the questionnaire, the views of experts on new teaching methods and new approaches to teaching and learning were applied. The reliability coefficient of the data was calculated using Cronbach's alpha, with the obtained value of 0.97 which indicates the high reliability of the devised questionnaires. To analyze the data, SPSS 22, one-group t-tests, Friedman and multivariate analysis of variance were used. Findings: The findings indicate that from the participants' point of view, in the components of ‘knowledge’ (1.54), ‘preparation’ (1.53) and ‘analysis / implementation of the course’ (1.61), ‘evaluation’ (1.74), ‘review’ (1.78), ‘optimization’ (1.76) and, in general, the information literacy status of the faculty members based on MOOC (1.66) are rated below the average. The components are prioritized as ‘optimization’, ‘review’, ‘evaluation’, ‘analysis/course implementation’, ‘preparation’ and ‘knowledge’, respectively. Accordingly, ‘optimization’ (3.74) is in the best and ‘knowledge’ (3.25) is in the worst condition. In addition, among the views of the research participants on the ‘gap of information literacy of the faculty members towards the MOOCs’, there is no significant difference among the distinguishing indicators, such as ‘history, gender, academic status, age, and department’. Conclusion: The results of this research show that MOOC-based information literacy is low among university faculty members and their knowledge and awareness of the MOOCs is very low. Lack of up-to-date faculty members, lack of various trainings, such as holding workshops, conferences, specialized meetings in the field of MOOCs, inattention and lack of emphasis laid by higher education institutions on the need to use new teaching methods by the universities, lack of attention to practical skills and familiarity with new teaching approaches in the world as a qualifying feature in employing the faculty members, lack of approval and demand of students from the faculty members to use the MOOCs in their teaching-learning approaches and the dominance of the traditional approach to teaching in the universities can be enumerated as the reasons for the results of the study.
Information literacy
Z. Batooli; F. Fahimnia; N. Naghshineh; F.S. Mirhosseini
Abstract
Background and Objectives:Despite the emergence and advancement of new technologies and, consequently, the change in lifestyle in recent decades, education systems have maintained the same traditional method of education and have not changed according to the characteristics of the digital generation. ...
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Background and Objectives:Despite the emergence and advancement of new technologies and, consequently, the change in lifestyle in recent decades, education systems have maintained the same traditional method of education and have not changed according to the characteristics of the digital generation. Meanwhile, digital generation features have been effective in learning-teaching approaches. One of the most important and recent developments in the field of modern technologies is the use of gamification, that is, the use of game elements in non-game contexts. Gamification is using game mechanics, game aesthetics, and game thinking to engage people, motivate them, and promote learning, and problem-solving. The use of game elements in educational environments has been found in developed countries and even in developing countries as a special place to face current educational problems. The purpose of this study was to review the studies in the field of ‘Gamification in e-learning’ and to present the content analysis of this field and its effectiveness in education. Methods: A systematic search of articles was done in February 2018. After searching the databases Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Emerald with keywords Gamification, gamify, and gameful and also online, web, tutorial, module, e-learning, electronic, and e-course, and based on input criteria, 60 relevant articles were selected in this study. The selected articles were analyzed in terms of game elements, gamified e-learning courses, and the purpose of the articles. Findings: Target population in this reviewed article included high school, secondary school, and elementary school students, and also university students from a variety of disciplines, including Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, Business Management, Building Engineering, Computer, Informatics, Library and Information Sciences, Psychology, Journalism, Construction Engineering, Nursing, and Tourism. In these studies, the effectiveness of gamification on learning various educational topics such as the programming languages, English language, data structure and algorithm, mathematics, economy and politics, psychology, informatics, physics, German language, medicine, and biology, have been studied. The effectiveness of gamification on participation/engagement, learning, motivation, anxiety, peer assessment, collaboration, website optimization, cost reduction, and faculty load were among the subject areas studied in these articles. Effectiveness of game elements on behaviors such as leaderboard on anxiety, point on motivation, leaderboard on learning and engagement, half-anonymity avatar on motivation and engagement and, avatar on motivation are among other topics covered in these studies. Furthermore, a few research has been done on determining the game elements affecting learning and motivation, the possibility of predicting the game elements suitable for different users, and gender differences in dealing with gamification. The game element point, leaderboard, badge, levels, challenge, and feedback were used more than other elements. Other elements of the game used in educational environments include avatar, progress bar, social sharing, unexpected rewards, time limit, freedom to fail, currency, missions, and rules/goals. The number of game elements used in these studies varies. In some studies, only one element of the game has been used, and in other studies, two, three, or even more elements of the game have been used and evaluated. Conclusion: The results indicated the effectiveness of gamified e-learning environments to increase learning, engagement, and motivation of learners. This result is due to the features that are at the heart of gamification; because gamification leads to a change in behavior and extensive learning experiences.
Information literacy
A. Zahed Babelan; S. Rajabi
Abstract
The present study attempted to investigate the information literacy of students at Mohaghegh Ardabili University. The original pool for the study included 400 male and female students (freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior). The selection was made based on multi-stage sampling in 2010. The study is ...
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The present study attempted to investigate the information literacy of students at Mohaghegh Ardabili University. The original pool for the study included 400 male and female students (freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior). The selection was made based on multi-stage sampling in 2010. The study is a survey and the data have been collected based on 22 indices falling under five standards observed in "Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education" (ACRL, 2000) and a questionnaire constructed by the researcher. The findings demonstrated that the information of students stood above the average in terms of the five standards mentioned. The results obtained from a MANOVA test run showed a statistically significant difference between males and females regarding the variable in focus. The difference appeared to be statistically different among freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The difference, however, did not reach statistical difference among the students of Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Technology, and Engineering.
