Examining and Explaining the Relationship and Effect of Virtual Education on Cultural Intelligence and Academic Achievement (A Case Study of High School Students)

Virtual education is currently viewed as one of the kinds of formal education due to the prevalence of Corona disease. Virtual education is a collection of educational activities that are performed utilizing electronic devices including audio, video, computer, and network. On the other hand, cultural intelligence indicates the ability to be useful between various cultures, and these abilities can be trained to individuals and have been identified in four dimensions: motivational, cognitive, metacognitive, and behavioral. Additionally, academic achievement symbolizes students' success in one or more subjects (such as comprehension, reading comprehension, or numerical calculation), such advancement is measured by determined academic subjects and has indices such as the desire to study, self-esteem, motivation for progress, and creativity. This study aims to examine and explain the effect of virtual education on cultural intelligence and academic achievement of high school students and the statistical sample of this study is male and female high school students in Tehran's fifth district that 357 students were selected randomly based on Cochran's formula and were examined in a survey form. This research is based on Earley and Ang's theories. According to them, cultural intelligence refers to the degree to which citizens identify the cultural indices of society, which it is possible to be in four dimensions: cognitive, metacognitive, behavioral, and motivational in any community. Findings show that there is a perfect correlation between cultural intelligence indices. Additionally, indices of academic achievement are extremely affected by indices of cultural intelligence. Lastly, the findings explain that there is a relationship between virtual education and cultural intelligence with Pearson and Chi-square correlation coefficient equal to 42.791, and virtual education and academic achievement with Pearson and Chi-square correlation coefficient equal to 21.3425 and cultural intelligence and academic achievement with correlation coefficient of Pearson and Chi-Square equal to 22.9075. In other words, there is a direct and significant relationship between the variables of virtual education and cultural intelligence, virtual education, and academic achievement, cultural intelligence, and academic achievement. So that increasing one variable increases another variable and also decreasing one variable decreases another variable. In general, virtual education as one of the most significant types of formal education that is presently very widespread in schools can increase and develop communication between students and cultural exchange, which if planned in the dimensions of virtual education and also cultural intelligence, will be possible to provide the conditions for academic achievement.