فصلنامه تعلیم و تربیت
سال بیست و هفتم شماره 4 (پیاپی 108، زمستان 1390)

Pre-school education can help with the developmental processes and educational skills, chief among which are the reading skills. Although it is the content and the approach in pre-school education that counts the most, the length of such programs can also be of impact on reading skills. To explore this relationship, a group of 180 female fourth graders were randomly and proportionally selected from among all such students in Tehran. A third of these students had two years of pre-school education while the other two thirds had either one year of such education or none at all. The instrument used to measure reading skills was the same as the measure used in PIRLS 2006. The analysis of the collected data shows that those with more schooling have better reading skills in both literary and informative reading material. However, the reading comprehension skills are not adequate.

From a constructivist perspective, cultural and particularly linguistic experiences of early childhood play an important role in elementary education and beyond. The main objective of pre-school programs is to help the pre-schoolers prepare for school culturally and specially linguistically. However, the significance of pre-school programs is multiplied in areas faced with bilinguality of home and school because student's lack of linguistic preparedness would lead to learning difficulties and slow advancement in school. With the purpose of helping to improve and promote pre-school education, the present study compares the linguistic preparedness and advancement of two groups of first and second graders, half of whom have gone to pre-school and half are girls. The instruments were specially constructed and their validity and reliability tested to be adequate. The results show more linguistic preparedness and advancement in those who have pre-school experiences. Hence, pre-school programs have been effective and need to be expanded.

To determine the extent to which a number of elements assumed to be predictors of religious beliefs and conduct among Iranian adolescents, a number of instruments were used to measure the role of parents and peers and the adolescent's attachment to them, self-control and family function, and religiosity. A sample of 480 high school students selected from among all such students in Zaahedaan, Eeraanshahr, and Zaabol cities in Seestaan va Baloochestaan province was given the said instruments. The analysis of data so collected yielded the following family functions such as warmth, freedom, and reasoning have the highest positive and material encouragement and forcefulness have the highest negative correlation with religiosity. The correlation between adolescent's perceived religiosity in peers and parents and their own religiosity ranked second and third. The coefficients range from 0.17 to 0.29.

Historical research can be utilized in education in order to gain insight into educational problems and solutions of the past decades and centuries and how they have developed or reemerged in today's educational arena. However, it seems that such research is not favored that much by Iranian researchers. Perhaps the relative difficulty of this type of research is the cause, but lack of awareness and skills in doing such research could also be the source of the problem. To help solve this major problem, the what, why, and how of historical research are explained herein.

Artistic language is expressive and any concept expressed in such language would be lasting if not eternal. Our literary history is witness to this claim as it clearly shows the philosophical and religious beliefs of past artists. Hence, art works contain messages that are aimed at their audiences and can be categorized as secular and Spiritual. Such messages can have a strong impact on the audience and lead them towards one of these tendencies. An historical approach to this topic herein is aimed at delineating guidelines for the use of art works in sectarian/spiritual education.

Social capital is an important concept and needs to be dealt with from early years of schooling. To see the extent to which the elementary school textbooks in Iran actually deal with this concept and/or its components, a number of textbooks were randomly selected and their content analyzed. The unit of analysis, however, has been the paragraph. From among 1797 paragraphs analyzed 38.7% contained elements/signifiers of social capital. Among all the components of the concept, norms were emphasized with the highest relative frequency (43%); socio-cultural values came in second with 33.3% relative frequency. The least frequently mentioned components of social capital observed are the quality of relations and interactions among members with only 4.1%, and cooperation with 8.4% relative frequency. Trust and worthiness of trust was only sighted in 11.2% of the relevant paragraphs. Among the textbooks, fifth grade's Civics book with 64.8%, and Reading Farsi with 20.7% relative frequency have the highest and lowest number of reference to social capital.

Considering the importance of comprehension skills in understanding and solving problems in mathematics, and the fact that those who comprehend the problem better come up with better solutions, it was hypothesized that if the teaching method emphasizes on comprehension skills the learners would become better problem solvers. One method that emphasizes both cognitive and metacognitive skills is the Reciprocal teaching (cooperative learning).To show the effectiveness of this method, two groups of female sixth graders were initially tested on their comprehension and problem solving skills and then one went through a series of sessions in which Reciprocal teaching method was utilized while the other group experienced the usual method of teaching the same material. The analysis of both pre- and post-test data shows a statistically significant difference between the two groups due to the method used.