Education technology - Evaluation and testing
M. Meshkat; A.R. Nasiri Firooz
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether self-assessment as a metacognitive strategy has any obvious effect on improving grammatical knowledge of Iranian EFL students. To achieve the purpose, 60 male junior high school students with the age range of 13-16 participated in this study. A Nelson ...
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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether self-assessment as a metacognitive strategy has any obvious effect on improving grammatical knowledge of Iranian EFL students. To achieve the purpose, 60 male junior high school students with the age range of 13-16 participated in this study. A Nelson test was administered to homogenize the two groups regarding language proficiency and outliers were discarded. The researcher had one experimental and one control group. To determine students' level of grammatical knowledge a pre-test developed by Farhady (2000) was administered. The result showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups. After the pre-test the treatment began. The control group received no extra instruction and underwent traditional assessment. Whereas the experimental group went through the process of self-assessment whereby they checked their own activities and found their own strengths and weaknesses. Self-assessment was practiced for six sessions during three months. A session after the treatment was over; a post-test developed by Farhady (2000) was administered. The results were compared through an independent t-test. The value of t was 3.417 with a significance of .001 depicting a significant difference between the two groups in the study. The outcome showed that self-assessment had a positive effect on improving students' grammatical knowledge. The findings of this study will be an incentive for syllabus designers as well as teachers and students to allocate specific time to self-assessment. Teachers can use self-assessment along with other activities to improve grammatical knowledge.
Modern Educational Approaches
S.E. Beladi Dehbozorg; M.H. Kaboli; A.A. Heidari
Abstract
Background and Objective: Creativity is one of the basic and constructive features of human beings, that has an effective role in the growth and development of the individual and human civilization, and it is the basis of scientific and artistic inventions and achievements. Part of a person's creativity ...
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Background and Objective: Creativity is one of the basic and constructive features of human beings, that has an effective role in the growth and development of the individual and human civilization, and it is the basis of scientific and artistic inventions and achievements. Part of a person's creativity comes from the instruction they receive throughout their lives. This is especially projected in design-related professions, especially architecture and environmental design, in which the issue of creativity is of particular importance. Creativity is the missing link of contemporary tutorials in architecture. This topic in practical lessons, with an approach to creating an exquisite work, is more. Nevertheless, it seems the method of teaching in such courses could help them to grow their creativity. Methods: Two methods of teaching architecture based on teacher- and student-cetered were considered as the base models. The impact on understanding and expressing the environment (UAEE) during one semester by comparing student creativity was examined. For this purpose, 80 sophomores of Islamic Azad University, Tehran West Branch, were Selected as the sample of research and they were deployed in two studios (each studio containing 40 students), and were instructed by two methods "teacher-centered' and "student-centered” during one semester. At the end of the semester, with the Torrance test, their creativity was assessed and ANOVA and F tests were used to measure the significance of the results. Findings: The results indicated the student-centered approach to raise the students' creativity was the most successful way of UAEE through both methods. Conclusion: According to the results, in the student-centered teaching method, since the classroom is based on the active participation of students, the teacher goes from one group to another and manages the class by discussion and gives students the opportunity to take more responsibility for their own learning. In other cases, the students are given the opportunity to determine the style of teaching and to direct the class with their activities. The appearance of the class changes throughout the semester, and the students do things and ask others to help them complete that. Thus, the tasks are not instructed, but are created. Evaluation methods are also different in such classes. In these classes, special attention is paid to formative assessment, because in the classroom, students are not compared with each other, but each student is compared with themselves. Traditional forms of evaluation cannot be used. Therefore, evaluation with problem solving approach, preparation of checklist of skills and attitudes, evaluation according to the portfolios, evaluation based on oral expression and ... are different ways of formative evaluation. In this way of teaching, the student is free to express his / her mental image and search until he / she discovers and understands correctly.
