Journal of Iranian Distance Education
Volume:4 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2022

The present paper is a comprehensive empirical program of a group of faculty members in University of Sistan and Baluchestan on decreased fraud solutions for e-tests. The group views and experiences were reviewed and shared on a dedicated online platform. In early 2020, shortly after the epidemic of Covid-19 and almost simultaneously with the opening of universities, this platform was established to share the experiences related to applying e-learning methods for courses that were mainly in person so far. This is a qualitative interpretative phenomenology study. Materials, views, measures, and recommendations of a group of faculty members for decreased cheating in online tests were classified under some headings. In addition to the literature review, the most effective solutions to increase awareness and enhance students’ continence and honesty against the tendency to cheat and practical suggestions to reduce students’ fraud in online tests were provided. Research samples included faculty members of basic sciences, education and psychology, and engineering. Hence, however, some proposed strategies and approaches are widely used in a particular educational field and may be less practical in some other specialized areas.

This study determined the Biology teachers’ access to the use of virtual laboratory in Secondary schools in Minna, Niger State. The study adopted descriptive research of the survey type. The population for the study consisted all secondary school Biology teachers in Minna, Niger State. 300 Biology teachers were purposively selected based on the available Biology teachers in Zone B senatorial district in Niger State. The instrument for data collection was an adapted questionnaire. Descriptive and Inferential statistics were used to answer the research question and test the stated hypotheses with the aid of stastistical product and service solution (SPSS) version 20.0 at 0.05 level of significant . The findings indicated 60.1 % of the biology teachers had access to virtual Laboratory and there is no significant difference in teachers’ access to virtual laboratory for teaching biology based on gender and school type. The study concluded that activities that would require the use of ICT-based resources in secondary school should be given to both male and female since the findings of this study revealed that there was no significant difference between male and female teachers. The study recommends that since ICT resources relies heavily on power supply, provision of solar power supply would facilitate constant supply of electricity for maximum utilization of ICT based resources and facilities for teaching Biology.

One integral constituent of argumentative writing is the capability of drawing upon relevant evidence to endorse an argument, a practice that itself necessitates elaborate reading and writing processes. Taking the position that writing can be an important skill to foster knowledge building pedagogy; this article explores changes made to argumentation behavior in L2 essay writing composed by two groups of language learners attending an integrated writing course. Thirty-one language learners as participants of the experimental group used two popular news mobile applications online and offline for reading as a pre-task activity that made them outperform their counterparts in the control group in terms of using factual evidence, namely statistics, incidence, findings, and quotations. The statistical analyses disclosed a significant difference in the overall writing ability of the two groups in the experimental group’s favor. This outperformance partly resulted from richer content presentation in essays written by those who had read through mobile news applications and used more facts in their essays. Findings of the present paper can shed new light on how to utilize digital materials for the purpose of enriching EFL writing content.

Davies technology acceptance model is one of the simplest and most powerful acceptance review models. The present research has been carried out with the aim of investigating the acceptance model of information and communication technology (ICT) in virtual education from the point of view of teachers of exceptional schools in Guilan province. The research method is quantitative in terms of general approach and descriptive-survey in terms of data collection. The statistical population is 760 teachers of exceptional schools in Guilan province, of which 260 were selected by simple random. A researcher-made questionnaire was designed to collect data. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.75 shows the reliability of the questionnaire in collecting the required data. In order to determine the structural validity and fit of the designed model, confirmatory factor analysis method and structural equation model were also used. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between individual factors, social factors, organizational factors, innovation characteristics, understanding of usefulness, understanding of ease of use, attitude, willingness to use technology and use of technology. Also, the results of the research showed that the variables used in the research were a suitable model for examining the pattern of acceptance of information and communication technologies based on the Davis model of technology acceptance among teachers of exceptional schools in Guilan province. According to the fit indicators obtained in the research, it is recommended to hold in-service classes with higher quality and more organizational support from information and communication technology.

Recent developments in mobile technologies are exerting considerable influence on the students’ daily lives and their educational practices. In this regard, mobile assisted reading in language education is gaining increased attention. Within these lines on inquiry, the current study investigated foreign language reading anxiety in mobile learning environment. The data were collected from 50 Iranian EFL learners, divided into control and experimental groups. The participants in the control group were given the reading materials on paper and used traditional materials, while the control group used mobile devices to read the assigned texts. Both groups participated in reading comprehension tests before and after the treatment. The findings revealed that mobile assisted reading in English contributed significantly to anxiety reduction among the learners, nevertheless, its impacts on comprehension were insignificant. The findings have some implications for teaching EFL reading, and contributes to growing body of knowledge in mobile assisted reading.

The present study aims at investigating the effectiveness of the blended learnin course on the academic performance of seventh grade students in the field of photography in the art course. The research method is quasi experimental with post-test, pre-test and control group. The statistical population consists of all female students in the 7th grad secondary school in Gonabad city. The research sample was 58 participants selected through available sampling and assigned in two experimental and control groups who were homogeneous based on educational achievement. The experimental group was given instruction in blended learning system and the control group was under traditional teaching style. The pre-test of academic performance in the field of photography in the art course was performed on both experimental and control groups and after 12 instruction sessions in blended learning style to experimental group, the post-test of academic performance in the field of photography in the art course was administered among both groups. The results were analyzed using Covariance Analysis in SPSS software. The findings indicate that the academic performance of experimental group in familiarizing with photography and viewfinder and identifying the best photography angle, in understanding and identifying and working methods of analog and digital cameras, according to the point of emphasis in photography, The method of photography at different times and photography at night and lighting in photography, have been enhanced and there was a significant difference between academic performance of experimental and control groups in the field of photography with a higher achievement of experimental group.

Distance learning has gained more significance in recent years. The present study intended to investigate whether there was any statistically significant correlation between motivation and learning English through Shad and WhatsApp as perceived by Iranian high school language learners. Furthermore, the study aimed to find out whether the participants’ gender moderated the relationship between motivation and learning English through Shad and WhatsApp. To fulfill these aims, a correlational study was set up and data were collected from 169 male and female learners, some of whom were exposed to WhatsApp and the rest received Shad as their English language class platforms. Data elicited from the motivation questionnaire and English language test of the learners were analyzed through the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Pearson correlation, and Fisher's z transformation formula to come up with the results of the study. The findings revealed that there was a moderate, positive, and statistically significant relationship between motivation and English learning of the WhatsApp-group learners. Moreover, it was found that there was a weak, positive, and statistically significant relationship between motivation and English learning of the Shad-group learners, and gender did not have a moderating role in the relationship between motivation and English earning of the learners, neither in the WhatsApp nor in the Shad groups. The implications of the study are presented and discussed.

Educational technology has grown appreciably in recent years and the number of books and articles published in this field is increasing day by day, and therefore the necessity of scientific research is determined. The current research is a kind of descriptive study that was carried out using scientometric indicators. the research area includes all the articles on Educational technology that were indexed in the Science Direct citation database from 1999 to 2022, and after filtering them, 7550 of them were analyzed with the help of Excel and VOS Viewer software. It was analyzed for analysis and display of data. The results of the research show that the number of articles has an upward trend and 2015 had the largest share in the number of articles. Also, Research articles (7,442), Journal Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences (2,111) and scientific field Social Sciences (3,220) were ranked first. 13 clusters were identified that the topics of lifelong learning, instructional design, secondary education, interactive learning environment, architectures for educational, and pedagogical are very popular and also Previous in the field of Elearning and subjects: COVID-19, artificial intelligence, gamification, learning analytics, augmented reality, and Distance learning are new in the field of Educational Technology.

During the pandemic of COVID-19, face to face class sessions, in education systems, have been suspended due to various recommendations of governments. To continue teaching and learning, universities have switched to online learning. In the past two years, implementation of online learning, despite its benefits for higher education, has had its drawbacks and students have faced to a variety of challenges. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions and opinions of undergraduate engineering students at the University of Tehran about the existing challenges, and their suggestions for making the online learning more efficient in engineering education. This research is performed using a mixed model. A conceptual research model was designed that categorized the main elements of effective online learning into three categories: learners, instructors, and content, and then based on this conceptual model, a questionnaire including Likert and open-ended questions was developed to determine the challenges facing engineering students in online learning in the Corona era. By distributing this questionnaire among incoming engineering students of Tehran University in 2019 and 2020 and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, to two questions, "What have been the challenges of engineering students in online learning during the Corona era?" And "How has the quality of online engineering education been during the corona pandemic?", was answered. For analysis, qualitative data were coded and categorized using the thematic analysis method and using MAXQDA, and the frequency of each category and code was determined. Quantitative data were also analyzed by statistical analysis methods including descriptive statistics and t-test of independent groups in the SPSS, and then two sets of findings obtained from quantitative and qualitative data were summarized and combined. Based on the results, students' challenges during the pandemic were categorized into five groups: personal challenges, limited social interaction, technology problems, evaluation issues, and concerns about content and teaching methods. Students’ feedback is an important tool in assessing the quality of online courses but other stakeholders’ conceptions and feedbacks should be studied in future research as well.

The current study aimed to examine whether or not the explicit teaching of motivational regulation strategies significantly affected Iranian EFL learners' willingness to communicate (WTC) in general English online classes. Moreover, it endeavors to investigate if there was a significant difference between male and female Iranian learners' WTC in general English online classes regarding the explicit teaching of motivational regulation strategies. To this aim, a pretest-posttest design was used and 130 participants were randomly chosen out of 406 pre-intermediate level students. After the administration of the homogeneity test, 92 learners were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. There were 46 learners in the experimental and 46 learners in the control group with equal number of male and female participants in each. The findings revealed that the explicit teaching of motivational regulation strategies significantly affected Iranian EFL learners' WTC in general English online classes. It was also observed that female Iranian learners’ WTC was significantly higher than that of male learners' in general English online classes regarding the explicit teaching of motivational regulation strategies. The findings of this study could be of great importance for language learners, teacher trainers, and teachers.

The present study aimed to provide the structural modeling of students' dependence on social networks without parents' involvement according to the mediating role of resilience. The research was correlational in terms of the type of design and had a structural equation method, and its statistical population consisted of all female (1145) and male (1249) adolescents in Zarrin Shahr in the academic year of 2021-2022. Using the convenience sampling method, 200 students were selected and asked to answer the questionnaire about dependence on social networks by Haghayegh, Kajbaf, Nikbakht, et al. (2016), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RIS) (2003), and the parents' educational involvement questionnaire by Grolnick et al. (2000). Research data were analyzed using AMOS software and structural equation modeling (SEM). The tested models were confirmed in resilience, involvement at school, home, and cognitive and personal components. Furthermore, there were significant negative relationships between all dimensions of educational involvement and dependence on social networks. Based on the above-mentioned findings, adolescents belonging to families with less educational involvement were more exposed to being dependent on social networks, and resilience, as a learned skill that was affected by familial factors and could also affect them, could decrease or increase this vulnerability.

E-Learning is an important tool in higher education in the digital age and has led to the creation of a learning environment on based learner, flexibility in learning methods and the introduction of changes in teaching and learning process in higher education system. This changes led to challenges such as increasing or decreasing academic performance. Thus the purpose this research was the analysis of relationship between quality of e-learning system and student’s academic performance. The type of research was descriptive-correlative and the statistical population included students at University of Kashan (N=6473), through Cochran's formula and stratified random sampling 236 ones were selected as a sample. In order to collect data’s, used from the e-learning system quality questionnaire consisting of 47 answers closed items. To determine academic performance, the average of four semesters leading to the corona pandemic period was used. The reliability of the questionnaire was estimated 0.91 through Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Data’s analysis was performed at two levels of descriptive and inferential statistic. Findings showed that the mean of all components of e-learning system except evaluation quality (2.90±0.95) is higher than the cut-off point 3. The mean of the students’ academic performance (16.45±1.58) is higher than the average 10. Pearson correlation coefficient showed there is positive & significant relation between quality of e-learning system and students’ academic performance. In addition, regression coefficients showed that among the components, only the component of class holding quality (Beta=0.23 & P= 0.015) can predict students' academic performance.