نشریه مطالعات آموزش و یادگیری
سال یکم شماره 2 (پیاپی 57، پاییز و زمستان 1388)

IntroductionSometime after the age of 10, humans mature sexually and become capable of reproducing. The period of time during which the reproductive processes mature is known as puberty. Although the most obvious signs of development during puberty are physical changes also occur in cognitive functioning, social interaction, emotions and the sense of self. Adolescence is a longer period of time, and is generally defined as the period from the onset of puberty up to adulthood. Adolescence has traditionally been considered a time of conflict and turmoil; G. Stanley Hall, the first person to study adolescence scientifically, described it as a period of “storm and stress, as well as of great physical, mental and emotional change. Currently, many clinical psychologists and psychoanalytic theories still describe adolescence as a time of psychological disturbance.Test anxiety (TA), as an unpleasant psychological state consisting of both physiological and behavioral concomitants, is usually experienced in the formal testing settings or other evaluative situations (Dusek, 1980). TA presents an important educational problem which negatively affects millions of students’ motivation, acquisition of knowledge, information processing, academic achievement, creativity, and attitudes. Spielberger (1980) defines `worry` and `emotionality` as two important components for TA. The worry component concerns cognitive activities irrelevant to the task at hand, including excessive cognitive anxiety about academic performance, consequence of failure in examination, self-deprecatory thoughts and self-blame, a negativistic assessment of one’s capabilities in comparison with other students, pessimistic expectations from performance and negative self-assertion. The emotional aspect of TA is characterized by subjective feelings of tension, apprehension, uncertainty and activation or arousal of the autonomic nervous system such as heart beat, stomach disturbance, headache, perspiration, and tremor. The aim of this research was to study the effect of rational-emotive-behavioral group counseling of Ellis on Test Anxiety and Self-esteem of female third grade in Behbahan junior high Schools.Research Questions1= Does group consulting according to Ellis's rational, emotional and behavioral method reduce test anxiety among female students of the test group compared to the control group?2= Does group counseling of Ellis's rational, emotional and behavioral method increase general self- esteem among the female students of the test group compared to the control group?MethodThe research design was pretest-posttest with control group. The related population included all female third grade in Behbahan junior high schools in 2008. Nine hundred and eighty students studying in 17 state schools were monitored. The sample consisted of 60 students who suffered from test anxiety and low self-esteem. The participants were randomly chosen in multi stages and of the 17 institutions, 3 schools (institutions) were chosen randomly. The number of students in these institutions was 200. Therefore with regard to the drop of subjects under the test from 188 students of test examination anxiety of Asadi Moghadam and self- esteem test of Cooper Smith have been conducted randomly. It should be mentioned that 12 students were absent in the first day of the examination. Sixty students were subjected to examination anxiety and low self- esteem. These students were randomly divided into 2 groups of test and control groups; each group containing 30 students. In the next stage the students of experimental group were randomly divided into two groups of 15 students for group consulting and ultimately due to the drop of the number of experimental group members, each group was reduced to 12 persons. Therefore 6 persons were randomly dropped from the control group. It should be mentioned that those students were chosen as students suffering from anxiety and low self- esteem whose scores in Asadi Moghadam's test anxiety questionnaire had one deviation norm above and in the Cooper Smith test of self- esteem one deviation below the average. The experimental group received intervention (Rational-Emotive-Behavioral Group Counseling of Ellis) for 12 sessions. For analyzing the data MANOVA method was used.ResultsThe result of MANOVA showed that at least there is a significant difference between two groups in two dependent variables. Then, the significant difference between two groups in two dependent variables was confirmed by ANOVA method.Discussion and conclusionThe results obtained from this research showed that the group counseling according to Ellis's rational, emotional and behavioral method caused a significant decrease in the student's test anxiety. The possible explanation is that as long as irrational thoughts go on, there will be emotional disorders, but once the individual’s irrational beliefs are changed and he faces the life events rationally, such as in a test, then there will not be any anxiety and emotional disorders. In addition, group consulting according to Ellis's rational, emotional and behavioral method resulted in an increase in female student's self-esteem in test group compared to control group. The possible justification is that noticing the individual differences and not comparing self with others and also considering the fact that the main element in producing such conditions is the individual himself and not others, shows that individual plays a determining role in making his fate. This can result in an increase in person's responsibilities and therefore his self-esteem.

IntroductionReading comprehension strategies in particular have been studied for many decades, and research has revealed a great deal of information about the kinds of instructional activities that are most successful in helping students comprehend and remember what they read. For many years (including the 1970s), reading comprehension instruction was based on a concept of reading as the application of a set of isolated skills such as finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing. It was thought that comprehension could be taught by proving specific instruction through these discrete skills (National Reading Panel, 2000; Texts Education Agency, 2002). Several recent reviews and syntheses of research offer key information about effective comprehension strategy instruction. These reviews by Alvermann and Moore (1991), The National Reading Panel (2000), The RAND Reading Study Group (Snow, 2002), Carlisle and Rice (2002), Curtis (2002), Meltzer, Smith and Clark (2003), and others examine hundreds of scientific and quasi-scientific studies and conclude that comprehension can be enhanced by teaching a relatively small set of comprehension strategies. Researchers has identified the following comprehension strategies as being most effective for improving comprehension:Comprehension monitoring, Use of graphic semantic organizers, Question answering Question generation, Story Structure, Summarization, Cooperative learningResearch has also shown that although each of the strategies is beneficial when used alone, instruction is even more effective when several strategies are Integerated or put together in a flexible, responsive interaction between the teacher and the students (Gaskine, 1998; Pressley, 2000; Duke et al., 2004,). The National Panel (2002) specifically found that when used in combination, the use of strategies can improve results in standardized comprehension tests. This paper focuses solely on strategies like story structure that students can be taught, with the goal of eventually using the strategies on their own, and does not focus on which kind of instructional techniques can best be used to teach these strategies.The purpose of the present research was to compare the effects of two teaching Cognitive reading strategies (such as story structure, compare stories. Summarization) and traditional instruction on reading comprehension of fourth and fifth grades students with reading problems.Research hypothesisThe design of the Research is Factorial design method (2×2×2) which were employed with (2 class 2 groups 2 methods) 12 hypotheses were tested. The main hypotheses were: 1- Providing cognitive reading strategies to students does result in improvement of their comprehension, to put in another way, there was a meaningful difference between readers who receive cognitive training and traditional training (who did not receive such training) 2- The fifth grade students in comparison with fourth grade will have progress in reading comprehension test. 3- The students without reading problem have progress in reading comprehension test4- There is a meaningful interaction between method and classes in reading comprehension test 5- There is a meaningful interaction between class and reading problem students in reading comprehension test. 6- There is a meaningful interaction between method and reading problem students in reading comprehension test. 7- There is a meaningful interaction between class and the pair comparisons between groups and classes was the another 5 hypothesis)MethodThe target population of this study comprised of elementary students, and the sample consisted of 8 classes (160 students) who were randomly selected from the aforementioned population (4 classes in elementary school and 4 classes in learning disabilities center). Subjects were randomly assigned to groups. All students were evaluated by Wecsler intelligence test. InstrumentsThe instruments used in this study were two reading comprehension tests (pretest and posttest Researcher made tests). The validity of the test was determined with respect to views of a number of faculty members and teachers, and for the reliability test retest was used. The validity and reliability coefficient of both was high.A teaching workshop (1 month) was adminstereted for Instructors (teachers) in classes and the classes were supervised by researchers and assistants. Cognitive groups attended 90 minute session twice a week for a week (2 months), and tradition groups also attended 90 minitues session twice a week. There were 8 groups in study. The cognitive reading strategies taught in this study included story grammar, identifying paragraph structure, connecting or using background knowledge, guessing meaning from the context, find the main characteristic, questioning about the passages and then looking for answer, the traditional method was question answering reading, the paragraph, writing.ResultsThe data obtained were analyzed. A (2×2×2) factorial designed was employed. The results of this study showed significant main effect in cognitive teaching method, also there was no interaction between classes and methods. But there was interaction between methods and groups The findings showed the cognitive strategies could improve reading comprehension in fourth class and fifth class with and without reading problems.Discussion and Within reading, there can be many other skills, often referred to as strategies, such as identifying the main idea, following sequence, and adaptable plan, procedure, or process to improve reading performance. Reading strategies are important to reading comprehension because without them children have virtually no means to increase the sophistication of their reading.Direct instruction of cognitive reading strategies is crucially important. In instruction, teachers explain directly, model, and scaffold children's acquisition and development of reading strategies. The reading strategies demonstrated to be important to reading comprehension instruction. (Pressley 2005). Combinations of these strategies should be used and taught while interacting with a variety of texts over long periods of time in order for children to become independent in their use (Gregory & Chapman, 2002).There was clear evidence in this study that teachers can learn to implement cognitive comprehension strategy instruction in the classroom under natural teaching circumstance from grades 4 through 5. Results showed these strategies are useful for both reading problem student and normal student. All the studies were carried out on poor students who benefit from the teachers who were prepared to teach multiple reading strategies. Successful improvement occurred on learning the subject matter of the instruction and on standardized reading comprehension test performance.

IntroductionParental involvement in education has long been a topic of interest among those concerned with optimal developmental and educational outcomes for preschool and elementary school children. The idea that parents can enhance their children’s education has become very popular in many communities (specially in United States), but it has been referred to as an “institutional standard”(Lareau & Shumer, 1996) insofar as many schools spend considerable energy and resources to encourage parents involve in their children educational activities.Family Involvement Questionnaire (FIQ) (Fantuzzo, Tighe, and Childs, 2000), the most famous measure of family involvement in early childhood education, was developed based on this institutional standard. This scale was designed on Epstein’s (1995) parental involvement classification and developed in partnership with parents and teachers in a large program entitled HeadStart. Therefore it seems that FIQ is dependent on a specific academic system and is not appropriate for other social context. In response to the need for a measure of family involvement that is appropriate for Iranian parents, the purpose of this study was to develop and validate a parental involvement scale. Thus, the research addressed a primary question: does the new family involvement demonstrate acceptable construct validity and reliability?MethodSample and data collection This measure was designed based on investigators’ observation and interviews with parents. In this pilot study, 32 parents (14 fathers and 18 mothers) of preschoolers was directly interviewed. We asked parents about their beliefs, ideas, and behaviors regarding their involvement responsibilities and activities in children’s education. Based on this qualitative work, 37 involvement items such as “I talk to my child about the importance of learning new things” appeared. The scale was designed in a 5-point Likert format from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In the second step, data was collected from 319 parents of preschoolers (178 mothers and 141 fathers). Their mean age was 39 yr for fathers and 33 yr for mothers and the average age of their children was 5.8.ResultsTo determine the construct validity of the 37-item scale, principle component factor analysis was performed. The KMO ratio index, as a sampling adequacy, was 0.90 and the Bartlett sphericity test for correlation matrix was 3420 (P<0.0001). Principal component factor analysis offered a three-factor solution to this scale. The three-factor solution revealed through factor analysis is defined by the following constructs: parenting, learning at home, and home-school communicating. Each construct was found to be highly reliable, with Cronbach’s alphas of 0.79, 0.83, and 0.92, respectively. Also to check the reliability of the scale, test-retest coefficient for 14 days interval was 0.86 for total score and 0.86, 0.76, and 0.76 for three involvement components, respectively. Discussion In response to the need for a measure of family involvement that is appropriate for Iranian’s parents, the objectives of the present study were to develop and evaluate the scale. The development process produced a multidimensional scale that yielded three stable dimensions: parenting, learning at home, and home-school relationships. The three derived factors were congruent with three types of Epstein’s (1995) parental involvement. Therefore, the “Parenting” factor is defined by parent’s basic obligations toward their children, the “Learning at home” factor matches parental involvement in home learning such as spending time working with child, reviewing child’s school work, etc.; and “Home-school relationships” factor describes parents and school personnel (particularly teacher) about a child’s educational experience and progress. The other Epstein’s involvement types, Volunteering, Parental involvement in decision making, and Collaborating with the Community were absent in our scale. These types are special involvement activation that is not prevalent in our academic system. It means that based on Morgan’s (1992) perspective, the Iranian’s parental involvement can be understood at traditional level involvement.

IntroductionThe concept of metacognition was first introduced by Flavel (1976). According to him, metacognition means to actively organize and regulate these processes with respect to cognitive goals. This definition and the scope of its meaning have been changed and expanded to the extent so that we concider some components for this concept. Two main components are; metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control. Metacognitive knowledge contains declaration knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge, aditionally metacognititive control components consists of planning, monitoring, evaluating and revising.The result of many researches show that the instruction of metacognitive awareness is essential for learning at junior high school and following stages; it seems that junior high school curriculum must have special concentration on teaching of this knowledge to the students. This necessity is much more important for sciences education than others. It is obvious that these goals can be achieved when we focus on shuch knowledge in educational curriculum especially in the content and objectives of school syllabus.The basic question that comes to the mind is to what extent do we concentrate on metacognitive awareness in the sciences course of junior high school period? And how much is the student’s metacognition awareness? This study tries to respond to these questions and analyzing the elements of curriculum- the content and objectives of sciences courses of guidance school with respect to the emphasis on metacognitive awareness and evaluating the student’s metacognitive awareness.Research questions1- How much do the students of junior high school have metacognitive awareness?2- How much do the educational objectives of science courses in junior high school put emphasis on metacognitive awareness?3- How much does the teaching guideline of science course put emphasis on metacognitive awareness? 4- How much does the content of the textbook of science courses in junior high school emphasize metacognitive awareness?5- What is the relationship between students’ metacognitive awareness and the school curriculum of science courses of junior high scool with repect to the emphasis on metacognitive elements? MethodologyThis research is a quantitative kind which uses survey approach to investigate the amount of students’ metacognitive awareness and also uses quantitative content analysis for research documents.The target papulation are 65339 guidance school students of Shiraz and the documents include 3 textbooks, 3 teaching guidebooks of science junior high school courses from grade one up to grade three. The sample papulation of this study was 551 subjects who were selected randomly.Two instrumets were used for data collection, the first one was metacognitive awareness questionnaire and the second one was content analaysis checklist. Both instruments have reliability and validity. In order to analyze the data used descriptive statstics indexes - mean and standard deviation- and deductive method - ANOVA and t. test were used.ResultsIn the first question about the evaluation of students’ metacognition awareness, the findings showed that the mean of students’ metacognitive awareness was 3.79 and the standard divation (SD) was 0.61. In the two main catagories of metacognitive knoledge, the mean was 3.83 and SD= 0.65 and for metacognitive control, mean was 3.74 and SD= 0.55. For second question with the emphasis of the educational objectives on metacognitive awareness, the result showed that from 609 analysis units, 130 ones were refered to “metacognitive knowledge” and 349 of them refered to “unrelated case”. Among these, 106 were refered to “metacognitive knowledge” and 24 cases were related to “metacognitive control”. The content involovement coeficient related to metacognitive index was calculated through dividing the units related to metacognitive indexes to unrelated analysis unit and the results showed that the average of this coeficient is equal to 0.27.Refering to the third question, it means emphasis of teacher guideline of sciences textbooks of junior high school on metacognitive components, the result of content analysis showed that, from 2928 analytical cases, 515 were related to “metacognitive awareness” and 2413 cases wer related to “unrelated cases”. Among these, 352 cases were referd to “metacognitive knowledge” and 163 belonged to “metacognitive control”. The context involvement coefficient in relation to metacognitive indexes was measured and it was 0.19.For the fourth question, wich focused on the amount of science textbooks emphasis on metacognitive indexes, the results showed that from 2217 cases which were observed in the context, 389 cases were referd to metacognitive categories and 1828 belonged to nonmetacognitive cases. Among the former cases, 266 cases belonged to “metacognitive knowledge” and 123 were related to “metacognitive control”. The results were analyzed precisely and it was found that the context involvement coeficient was exactly 0.21.Discussion and conclusionThe result showed that in spite of the low frequency of metacognitive indexes in the context of the textbooks, The students acquire 3/78 metacognitive awareness in average and the expectancy total mean (2/5) showed this high average and it was consistant with Reder (1996) and Fishers (2007) results which indicated that some elements of metacognitive awareness was due to the non-planned experiences. Aditionally, it was shown that the average of metacognitive knowledge was more than the average of metacognitive control. This diffrence mybe due to the diffrence between theoritical knowledge versus applied knowledge. The result of analysis of educational objectives of science textbooks of junior high school showed that these objectives were more non-metacognive than metacognitive ones. The metacognitive coefficient was about 0.21 which was lower than what we expected. In other words, only 10.5 percent of the whole objectives were metacognitive objectives.The results of analyzing teaching guidline content indicated that the frequency of “non-metaconitive” units observed in the context were much more than metacognitive units and also most of the metaconitive units were related to “metacognitive knowledge”. In this regard, the context involvment coeficient related to metacognitive indexes was equal to 0.17. It means that only 8.5 percent of teaching guideline content refered to metacognitive indexes. As metacognitive awareness is completely essential for learning and result in learners’ achivment and success, these findings can show the lack of essential metacognitive indexes in science curriculum of junior school. The results of content analysis of science textbooks refering to the amount of emphasis on metacognitive awareness showed that the frequency of metacognitive knowledge indexes was much more than that of metacognitive control. However, in the context of the book the metacognitive concepts were not focused greatly and the context involvement coeffiecient for metacognitive indexes was 0.17, which was lower than what was expected.To interprete this coefficient we can say that only about 8.5 percent of the whole text books was focused on teaching metacognitive awareness. The main reason for the lack of metacognition in the content of this research document is that the authors of text books did not pay attention to the increase of learners’ metacognitive awareness.Generally, the results of this research show that the context of the text books under investigation have a low context involvement coefficient regarding to the metacognitive index. However, the average of students’ metacognitive awareness was high. This difference shows that most of the learners’ metacognitive performance was unconcious and implicit. In other words, in spite of the metacognitive weakness of the content of the textbook, students use unique metacognitive strategies. This contrast in results can be attributed to the latent curriculum.

IntroductionPathologic relations between girls and boys is a problem that have led to some worries for families and educational staff in Iran. Such relations can lead to some worries for adolescent as well as feeling of abuse, depression, irrtiability, confusion, poor educational function. isolation, negative attitude toward marriage and so on. It is necessary to design some programs of prevention. These programs should make the adolescents aware about negative relations and positive relations. Also they must be aware how they can manage these relations. One of these programs, is preventive training that can be executed for adolescents to educate them about the harms of these relations. Thus, the aim of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of prevention of harmful relationships training on attitudes of male and female high school students of Shahinshahr City toward boys and girls relationships.Research HypothesisIt is assumed that preventive training can change the attitude of students about psychological, educational, familial, social and marital harms due to these relations. The second assumption was that there is a significant difference between boys and girls in attitude toward harmful relations. And, the interactive hypothesis was that the effect of preventive training is different in boy and girl students. MethodTo do this, a semi-experimental research method of pretest/postest control group and one month follow-up was conducted. Statistical population consisted of all of high school students in the first and second grade. Research sample was selected by clustering sampling method (295 totals) on the basis of grade and assigned to experimental (144 students) and control groups (151 students) randomly. Experimental group received prevention of harmful relationships training for six 1.5-hours in per sessions for 6 weeks. The measurement of this research was attitude toward relationships of boys and girls questionnaire developed by the researcher. This questionnaire consisted of 41 items. Questionnaire reliability with cronbach’s alpha was 0.92. ResultsThe results of the analysis of variance controling pretest scores showed that overall prevention of harmful relationship training has caused attitude change in students in post-test and follow-up points. In addition, the comparison of mean scores showed that attitudes of male and female students toward harmful relationships has a significant difference. The interaction of gender and group membership on boys and girls relationship questionnaire scores was not significant.DiscussionThe results of this research showed that preventive training of students can change attitudes about harmful relations. But because of nonsignificant effect of follow up, these trainings must be executed in all high school levels continuously. These trainings can reduce the injuries of pathologic girl and boy relations. Perhaps execution of the same programs for parents can help adolescents toward a better understanding of girl and boy relations.

IntroductionHealth in different stages of life, from childhood to adulthood, has an important role in human life and each person who is in good condition can reach the aging process. One of the important events of aging is retirement. For most people, retirement is not a stressor of crucial importance or a life crisis. In fact, retirement is stressful for one third of all retirees and it can damage their physical and psychological health. Retirees, who have poor health, not only have not positive attitude toward retirement, but also have negative evaluations about retirement. Retirees’ personal attitude and attributional style of retirement specified that this stage for retirees is enjoyable and it increases their mental health or has harmful effect on their mental health. In this regard, research has shown attributional style types of life events and behavior of people can affect their physical and psychological health. Attributional theory focuses on how people explain behaviors and outcomes for themselves, as well as others. Attributional theory studies personal perception, event perception, attitude change, treatment interventions, and self-awareness. Reattributional training helps to challenge incompatible spontaneous attributions. Also, reattributional training reduces depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms and increase function.Research questionThe purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of attributional style training on general health of retired high school teachers in Esfahan. On this basis, it is assumed that attributional style training increases general health and reduce depression, Social Dysfunction, anxiety and somatic symptoms of retired high school teachers.MethodIn this research quasi experimental design was used with two experimental and control groups. Independent variables include eight sessions of group attributional style training and dependent variable was general health that measured before and after the implementation of the independent variable. The statistical population was retired high school teachers in Esfahan in 1384 s.c. (2005-6). At first, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) was administered to one hundred and fifty retired high school teachers, thirty subjects who had less general health were selected and randomly assigned to two groups. One was the experimental group (N=15), the other was the control group (N=15). Then, the structured attributional style group training was instructed in eight weekly one-hour sessions. Methods of training were direct (face to face methods, lecture, group discussion) and indirect (through providing educational booklets). At last, the General Health Questionnaire was again administered as the post-test. Tool was General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). The GHQ is a measure of current mental health. The scale asks whether the respondent has experienced a particular symptom or behavior recently. GHQ-28 consists of four subscales labeled as: somatic symptoms, anxiety-insomnia, social dysfunction and severe depression. Each subscale includes 7 items. Each item has 4 levels of response options (less than usual, no more than usual, rather more than usual, or much more than usual). The most common scoring methods are original scoring (0-0-1-1) and Likert scoring styles (0-1-2-3). The research showed that validity level of general health questionnaire is very satisfactory and can be used for psychological research.ResultsThe results showed that post-test mean scores of general health, depression, social dysfunction, anxiety, insomnia and Somatic of the experimental group is lower than the control group and lower scores indicate higher health. The data was analyzed by ANOVA. Pre-test scores and age is controlled in all analysis. The results of analysis of covariance indicated that the attributional style training increased the general health of the training group as compared to the control group. Also, the attributional style training reduced depression, social dysfunction, anxiety and insomnia, and somatic symptoms.DiscussionDifficulties in retirement may increase the need for mental health interventions. Because poor health decreases positive attitude toward retirement and increases negative evaluations of retirement, today, some world large institutions consider retirement preparation programs. Retirement planning increase positive attitudes toward retirement. In this study, we were investigated effectiveness of attributional style training on general health of retired high school teachers in Esfahan. The results imply that the attributional style training is able to increase the general health and reduced depression, social dysfunction, anxiety and insomnia, and somatic symptoms. The results of this study were consistent with previous research in other countries. In general, participation in group meetings of attributional style training can cause that participant gain more self knowledge toward their thoughts. Therefore, they avoid negative attributional style and improve their mental health. To future researchers is recommended that mental health intervention programs be performed for those who have not retired yet and its effects study on increasing mental health retirements. Also, further researches are needed to substantiate results of this research in other communities. According to the findings of this study, it is suggested that attributional style intervention programs can be used to improve the general health of retired high school teachers.

IntroductionToday, the most current scientific findings are accessible through scientific journals. Based on the findings of several citation studies, scholarly journals constitute a major part of references in theses, research projects and journal articles. In other words, researches and scientific findings rely a great deal on scholarly journals, the most important channel for dissemination of scientific findings. Scholarly journals are the official scientific communication medium for scientific institutions and associations such as universities, colleges, and scientific and professional societies. (Fattahi, 18: 1381)By the advent of information technologies and their potential for storage and dissemination of information and since the introduction of Internet, electronic journals have become increasingly widespread which in turn could be a threat to their print counterparts. Based on their formats, electronic journals are two types: 1) Offline: such as floppy discs, CDs, DVDs and 2) Online: that is the kind of journals that all the processes of its production, distribution and acess are conducted through Internet. Therefore, online journals are named as Internet journals, net journals and electronic journals as well. (Mohseni, 78: 1385)Problems such as lack of access to electronic journals, low speed of Internet transmission and download problems have led libraries to become hesitant to choose between electronic and print journals. In addition to that, advantages of electronic journals such as ease of use, speed and saving time, result in the popularity of electronic journals among scientists; therefore, subscription of them should become one of the priorities of libraries. Many of the electronic journals are free while many others, especially those which are originally printed, should be subscribed and libraries should take access to both into consideration. Regarding what mentioned, the main purposes of this research is to verify the rate of use of electronic journals among Payame Noor University faculty members and study factors influencing in order to determine the necessity of subscription to electronic journals. The questions addressed in this research are:1. To what extent Payame Noor University faculty members use electronic and print journals?2. To what factors does the use of electronic journals depend on?Research methodThe research method was survey conducted through a written questionnaire which included parts addressing faculty’s access ways to computer and Internet, faculty’s home and office computer uses, faculty’s skills to use computer, Internet and databases. The latter was rated on a five point scale.Reliability of the questionnaire was determined by face reliability method. To determine the validity, split half and cronbach’s alpha methods were administered. The population for this survey was all of the 585 faculty members, out of which 169 responded to the questionnaires. Based on the official records of Payame Noor University, faculty members fall into two fields: humanities and basic sciences.ResultsThe main purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which Payeme Noor faculty members use electronic journals. In addition to that, this study aimed at determining factors influencing the use of electronic journals. Independent variables which examined the relation to dependent variable, the extent of use of electronic journals are: the extent of familiarity with full text databases, the amount of skills in using computer and Internet, the extent of access to electronic journals, the extent of Internet and computer problems and the extent of electronic journals acceptance.Results demonstrate the low rate of familiarity of faculty members with subscribed databases. It is also found that, the mean score (mean value: 7.5) of respondents’ rated skills (computer skills, information retrieval skills and database skills) is more than the average (6). As pertains to computer and Internet problems, results show that the mean score (15.4) is above the average (14).Results also demonstrate that access to electronic journals is low, in that the mean score of access scale is 1.06. It is also found that, 60.4 percent of the respondents have access to electronic journals through free databases, 11.1 percent of them have access through subscribed databases and only 7.7 percent have access to electronic journal through both mentioned ways.DiscussionAnswering the questions:1. To what extent do Payame Noor University faculty members use electronic and print journals?Results show that the mean score value of use of electronic jouanrls is 2.89 which is lower than the average (4). This result is an indication of faculty’s low use rate of electronic journals, be it free or subscribed. Meanwhile, the extent of faculty’s use of free journals is higher than that of subscribed ones.2. To what factors does the use of electronic journals depend on?Results indicate that access to electronic journals has the strongest positive relationship (R=0.4513) with dependent variable, the extent of use, following with the extent of familiarity and the amount of skills. Meanwhile, computer and Internet problems have a negative relation (R=0.3737) with the extent of use of electronic journals.Based on the multivariable regression test and B and ß co-efficiencies, extent of access has the strongest influence on the use of electronic journals, whereas the results from evaluation of direct and indirect influences of independent variables on dependent variable show that the extent of familiarity of faculty members with databases (R=0.32) has the strongest influence on the determination of dependant variable, followed by “access” variable (R=0.3).Results also demonstrate that the weakest meaningful relation is between the extent of acceptance and the extent of use. As Koltz put it, attitudes are complicated systems of beliefs that encourage people to behave in a certain way. However, in this research, the weak relation between acceptance (attitude) and behavior (use) could be resulted from inappropriate environmental conditions, namely internet and computer problems, lack of access, lack of skills and unfamiliarity.Findings also demonstrate that there is no meaningful relationship among age and experience and the extent of use. It is also found that Payame Noor University faculty members have a strong demand for subscription of databases. They suggest that relevant databases be subscribed, workshops be held, and Internet and computer problems be solved. They believe that workshops are conducive in the increase of their skills.