نشریه پژوهش و نگارش کتب دانشگاهی
سال هجدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 33، تابستان 1393)

This research aimed to review evaluation methods of university textbooks and their advantages and limitations. For this purpose, definitions of textbooks quality and evaluative approaches to textbooks were discussed. Moreover, three major methods of evaluation, including experimental method, respondent opinion, and analysis method were explained in terms of their advantages and limitations. The experimental method deals with issues such as measuring tools, implementation challenges, limited scale, ethical considerations, and uncontrolled impacts of new factor. The respondent opinion deals with issues such as comparing different respondent opinions, quick and superficial opinions, formulating opinions, and the influence of context on opinions. Analysis method deals with issues such as selection of criteria by stakeholders, time versus thoroughness, subjectivity versus objectivity, and the relative importance of criteria. Therefore, we conclude that considering the different evaluation methods of university textbooks, and regarding the advantages and limitations of each method, textbook evaluators should choose the best evaluation method.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of font and color on users’ words list learning in order to identify the effective factors of these variables, and to reduce the barriers that impede words list learning. The study sample consisted of 101 subjects that were selected through convenience sampling within Shahid Beheshti University students. In order to study learning process, auditory verbal learning test was applied to examine immediate and delayed reminiscence; and one-Way ANOVA with repeated measuring was applied for data analysis. Findings showed that font has significant effect on immediate learning, but bears no significant impact on delayed learning. The effect of color is not significant neither on immediate nor on delayed learning. Despite the color learning curve, font learning curve indicates significant learning effect.

Norms are the basis of understanding, judgments, and guidance of human actions in individual and social levels. Iran’s scientific dependency to the West and the implicational transmission of inconsistent norms requires experts and students to focus on the intellectual origin of the norms presented in translated textbooks, and on the pathology of the consequences of this transmission, too. In this regard, a more serious reflection is necessary also in scientific context in order to maintain the scientific, cultural, and social identity of the Iranian academic society. The present article aims to study this important issue in clinical psychology. Accordingly, translated textbooks and reference books of clinical psychology were studied with a focus on norm-oriented content analysis. This study focused on: a) the origin of the norms; and b) the classification of them. Based on the results of this analysis, a model of the dominant norms in psychology was presented. The criteria of abnormality in this model are based on two types of norms, and have been rooted in the intellectual and philosophical trends of two western ideologies. The final section of the article briefly describes, explains, and analyses the consequences that the covert norms of specialized clinical psychology textbooks had on the western societies themselves. Therefore, the most important disadvantages of the western modern era were briefly introduced. Western thinkers believe that these disadvantages are the result of those norms that underpin the concept of psychological normality and abnormality. The article concludes with several suggestions for promoting the culture of criticism in the framework of psychology textbooks.

Textbook-oriented teaching is the first priority in educational programs, and university textbook has an undeniable role in teaching process, as well as in the realization of the educational goals, hence teaching quality in higher education is partly dependent on the quality of textbooks. In the universities of Iran, teaching Islamic philosophy is generally carried out through traditional methods and resources, and no modern textbook has yet been developed to meet the relevant needs of students. Islamic philosophy is one of the heavy courses in the field of Islamic Philosophy and Wisdom so that in some trends it includes up to 24 units. Certainly, compiling textbooks according to the requirements of the students will solve one of the problems of this academic field and increases its efficacy. While representing the problems of philosophy teaching in Iran, this article analyses the necessary criteria for Islamic philosophy text.

Progress and development of science and technology is subject to training effective and efficient human resources. Textbook is the most important source of students’ growth and learning during education. Therefore, it is necessary to compile comprehensive textbooks that are in accordance with the basic criteria and meet the needs of learners. The major concern in compiling textbooks deals with the absence of a scientific method for designing quality textbooks. Study of scientific researches show that the attempts of scientists to identify criteria for compiling textbooks have led to mere descriptive results, and lack a systematic algorithm. In general, in order to show the logical relations of elementary parts, designing process should be as a system. While providing a comprehensive framework for determining the criteria and effective factors in the quality of textbook, this research uses an axiomatic designing technique as an efficient and systematic method for textbook designing. Based on independency axiom and information axiom, all the factors are designed as parts of a system. At the end, three books about operations management, as textbooks for MBA students at MA level, have been evaluated on the basis of a framework that was designed by the members of the management faculty of Shahrood University.

The book Communicology, written by Dr. Mohsenianrad, is one of the welcomed books that includes the major theories of the science of communication, a new definition for communication, and introduction of his new model in this area. This precious book has been used by university professors and students of Iran since 2002. However, there are some formal, structural, and content defects in the book, and this article has been written to suggest some modifications in this regard. This research has been carried out through an analytical-documentary technique in three dimensions: formal, structural, and content reviews. As a result, the research shows more than 20 defects, the most important of them concerns with the methodological fundamentals of some of the experiments introduced in the book. The second important content defect of the book deals with a philosophical approach to the problem of meaning; this research criticizes the author’s neuropsychological model that maintains, “meaning is materially present in hippocampus of brain as a protein compound”. This article, on the contrary, confirms that meaning is present in human’s abstract aspect of existence, and there is no place for meaning in his/her material parts of brain. The article suggests several modifications for formal and structural defects of the book, too.