Comparing and Contrasting Problem Solving Skills, Teaching Process and Research Insight between the Teachers Who Participated in the Action Research Course and Those Who Did Not in Mazandaran Province in 1387-88

The purpose of the research was to compare the skills of instructed and uninstructed teachers in action research period in three fields of research insight, problem solving and teaching process. Consequently, there were nine hypotheses .The research method  was qualitative and field study .The statistical population consisted of 33368 and 12000 of  instructed and uninstructed teachers respectively in action research period in the academic year of 1387-88 at affiliated schools of Ministry of Education in Mazandaran . The research data were gathered by a questionnaire and a checklist for behavior study. For the measurement of research (scientific) insight, an attitude questionnaire of 63 items in Likert  scale (strongly agree ,agree ,disagree ,strongly disagree) was used. For the measurement of problem solving and teaching process, a sample from the behavior study checklist was used. Each tool consisted of 20 items under1 to 5 mark limits. The reliability of research (scientific) insight was 0.81;  the index for checklist related to problem solving skill was 0.86, and checklist for teaching process had the index of 0.76.  Data analysis was done by SPSS software at two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics. At inferential level, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to normalize the data and T-test of two independent groups and double-regression analysis were also applied.  The results of the study were as follows: 1) The statistical results showed that from a total numberof232 instructed teachers, 35.8% and from196 uninstructed ones 12.8% participated in teacher's research program; 2) from the total number of 232 instructed ones, 62.9% and from196 uninstructed ones, 39.3% participated in other research periods; 3) furthermore, 43.1% of the instructed group, and 21.4% of the uninstructed ones mentioned that they participated in research and scientific seminars; 4) the results showed that there was no significant difference between scientific insight, and teaching process of instructed teachers, but at the 5% error level of these two groups, there was a significant difference in action research period in comparison to problem solving skill; 5) the results also showed that there was not a  significant difference  between  research insight, and teaching  process skill of instructed and uninstructed teachers at various  periods  of education and their  teaching background. But there is a meaningful difference between problem solving skill and various periods of education of instructed and uninstructed teachers. This difference was due to the high average of the scores of primary teachers. A significant difference was not observed between problem solving skill of instructed and uninstructed teachers with various educational   background.