Iranian Journal of Comparative Education
Volume:2 Issue: 1, Winter 2019

Educational research is one of the fundamental infrastructure factors that improve sustainable development of a country. The aim of this mixed method study was to explore research trends by employing scintiometric approach in order to visualize and structure Iranian educational research litrature. Based on the bibliometric technique, all 3,812 existing documents from 2000 to 2018 are investigated. Additionally, we employ bibliometric analyses on a sample of 100 most cited papers to identify articles of higher quality or impact. Major trends in Iranian educational research literature which have been investigated including variations across publication years, identifying active research areas, and the most prolific authors. The results of the thematic analysis showed that educational psychology in the schools, technology based research in higher education, improvement in language learning and micro view to teaching and learning are valuable Iranian educational research themes. Implications for research institutions, education policy makers, and educational researchers are discussed

Tertiary education of women is one of the most important investments a country can make in its people and its future because women form almost half of the population of each country. The present research reports the tertiary education of women in Islamic countries. It demonstrates that in two third of the Islamic countries there are fewer women in tertiary education in comparison with men. Although, comparing with the past, more women are majoring in academic fields related to Welfare and Health, the Humanities, and Natural Sciences, and there is even a gender imbalance in favor of women at the tertiary level overall, the significant reduction in the number of female researchers to less than 30% globally indicates that there are serious barriers impeding the full participation of women in Science and Engineering. During the period of transition from Master’s to PhD, the number of women decreases significantly. Therefore, gender parity should be considered a priority by all if the global community is determined to achieve the next set of development goals.

The purpose of present research was investigating factors and attitudes affecting participation in private touring classes. A descriptive survey method with a quantitative approach was used. The participants were selected from three   groups: high school students, their teachers and parents. Using a stratified random sampling method, 900 individuals were selected as samples. Based on the findings of the study, English, math, and sciences   were the most used subjects for private supplementary tutoring. Research findings revealed that parents with higher incomes are more likely to send their children to private tutoring classes.   From the views of teachers and parents, the main goals of participating in private tutoring classes for students are to better understand the subjects and improve their performance in the exams and national tests. Most teachers and students acknowledged the effectiveness of private tutoring. Although parents and teachers noticed that a combination of factors contributed to the demand for private supplementary tutoring of students, their ratings were significantly different from what the students rated. Private tutoring, like helping the students with their homework, is one of the options parents may consider when they want to value and respond to the demands of their children for additional support and resources available within the family. Although Ministry of Education as the main administrator should monitor the activities of such centers, it does not appear to be very successful in practice.

The present study identifies the empowerment dimensions of the staff of the Islamic Azad University of Iran and Canadian universities through understanding the key role of staff in the success of universities. The method used in this research was comparative with a mixed approach (quantitative-qualitative) and the required data were collected through in-deep interview and a researcher-made questionnaire. The statistical sample of the qualitative section consisted of 18 experts and that of the quantitative section included all staff of the selected branches of Islamic Azad University and selected universities of Canada. For qualitative data analysis in content analysis we used Delphi technique, and the inferential statistics were used for quantitative data analysis. In the first step, through a secondary analysis of theoretical foundations and interviews with experts, a model of psychological empowerment with 14 components was identified. First-order and second-order confirmatory factor analysis was used to investigate the ideal relationship between the 14 components with the psychological empowerment construct. Based on the confirmatory factor analysis, the model for assessing the staff's psychological empowerment constructs of the studied universities had an appropriate fit (proper desirability) and the components covered the psychological empowerment construct. One-sample t-test was used to investigate the level of attention paid by the university to the staffs' psychological empowerment components. Based on the findings, both universities resemble each other in terms of the components of "effectiveness, significance, and feeling of competence, proper appreciation, job enrichment, and effective organizational communication, optimization of processes and methods, and educational processes". The research findings also explain the difference between the two universities, such that the level of attention to the components of "right to choose, organizational commitment, transparency in goals and knowledge and job experiences" at Islamic Azad University of Iran and the level of attention to the component of "work environment revitalization" in Canadian universities are poor and lower than the test value for the staff's psychological empowerment.

The purposes of this study were to determine a reading ability level based on the CEFR for male and female engineering students and to compare their reading levels on the CEFR and DIALANG self-assessment grids with the level based on their performance on the reading tasks. The participants were 162 Iranian male and female undergraduate students at the Iran University of Science and Technology. DIALANG and CEFR reading self-assessment grids and four reading tasks at four levels (i.e., A2, B1, B2, and C1) were administered to the participants. Considering the students’ performance on the reading tasks, the results revealed that female learners outperformed the male learners; however, a considerable number of learners (about 40%) in both groups were considered ‘Below B1’. The results also showed that learners’ self-assessment did not closely correspond with their performance on the reading tasks as both groups of learners rated their reading ability lower on the CEFR and DIALANG grids; nevertheless, the highest matches were related to the female learners' ratings on the DIALANG grid.

The higher education system and its various dimensions are always subject to the influence of external discourses such as the "international ranking system of universities". Today, the curriculum as the core and reflector of the values, beliefs, and priorities of higher education policymakers is at the forefront of rational interaction with the ranking phenomenon of universities. In fact, the qualitative and quantitative evolution of the Iranian higher education system in the last four decades has led to a new phase that is not to be missed, as the slow but steady transition from the first generation to the fourth generation of universities in Iran has caused. Now that higher education policymakers are faced with the fundamental question of whether international university rankings can be considered as a transformational discourse for the curriculum. The present study, using discourse-based analysis, takes advantage of the forklift approach to analyze relevant texts and extract appropriate themes with three stages of description, interpretation and explanation. Research findings show that the phenomenon of international ranking of universities has the characteristics of a transformative discourse in the higher education system that affects all its dimensions. The paper suggests that Iran's higher education curriculum can adapt itself to the fourth generation of university challenges by combining traditional and modern discourse.