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Showing 13 results for Critical Thinking

Tahmineh Khalili, Saeed Ketabi, Dimitris Pnevmatikos, Dariush Nejadansari Mahabadi,
Volume 0, Issue 0 (2-2024)
Abstract

Critical Thinking (CT) which has been defined as the employment of cognitive skills or strategies for obtaining sound conclusions (Halpern, 2013) has been the subject of different Second Language (L2) studies at national and international levels. The aim of the present study was to provide a meta-analysis on the (quasi) experimental studies of critical thinking in second language education in Iran. To this end, from a total of 168 studies published between 2011 and 2020, 24 studies were selected based on the inclusion-exclusion criteria. The included studies were coded to calculate the mean effect size of the studies. The results show that 1) L2 teaching was positively effective for the CT development in Iran; 2) the most beneficial aspects of L2 teaching on CT promotion were related to teaching L2 speaking and L2 rhetorical strategies; 3) concerning L2 proficiency level, L2 instruction was most advantageous for advanced students’ CT developments; 4) regarding the age groups, L2 teaching contributed the most growth in CT levels for learners in the age group of 10-14 years, and 5) L2 teaching was most effective for the undergraduate students compared to other educational levels. The findings can be beneficial for pursuing the next moves in L2 research, education, and planning educational policies in Iran.
Sedighe Joodinia, Abdorreza Tahriri,
Volume 0, Issue 0 (2-2024)
Abstract

Although critical pedagogy (CP) is a worthwhile approach to education, not much attention has been paid to its application in online courses. Acknowledging its pivotal role, this study intended to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ awareness of CP and explore the possible effects of teaching experience on their awareness of CP via a CP questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. Furthermore, to evaluate teachers’ actual classroom application of CP, online EFL classes were observed. The results indicated that teachers’ awareness of the significance of CP principles did not help them fully implement the principles in their online teaching practices. A significant relationship between teaching experience and some subscales of CP principles was also found. The findings of this study can offer some implications for English teachers in the post-method era to rethink their previous critical views towards English language teaching and their roles as facilitators.
 
Zahra Dolati, Abdorreza Tahriri, Seyyed Ayatollah Razmjoo,
Volume 0, Issue 0 (2-2024)
Abstract

Being a promising component of educational and occupational success, the inclusion of critical thinking in various aspects of schooling has gained momentum in recent years. Therefore, the present study investigated the Iranian 12th grade English language final examinations based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy in terms of “knowledge dimension” and “cognitive process dimension” over the last five years of exam administration. Using a quantitative content analysis design, the items of the aforementioned examinations administered from 2019 to 2023 were analyzed. The findings of the study showed that the frequency of “conceptual knowledge” items in the “knowledge dimension” and “understand” items in the “cognitive process dimension” were significantly higher based on the results of Chi-square test. Moreover, the frequency of items relevant to lower-order thinking skills was found to be considerably higher than that of the items related to higher-order thinking skills, although instances of top cognitive level items could be traced in these examinations. It was also revealed that there was no considerable change with regard to the inclusion of the two dimensions of Bloom’s revised taxonomy over the five years of administration under study. The results of this study can be a fillip for policy makers, textbook developers, and teachers to accelerate the required changes regarding the consideration of inclusion of critical thinking-based tasks in textbooks, lesson plans and examinations.
 

Volume 1, Issue 2 (4-2021)
Abstract

In different branches of science, the word 'logic' can denote different scientific activities. Logic courses taught in humanities departments and the ones taught in engineering departments only share similar course titles, several preliminary definitions, and examples. This raises the question about the nature of logic and the purpose for teaching it to students of different academic majors in higher education institutions. Normally, the answer would be that logic, similar to other courses, equips students with tools or skills they will need in their studies. But what are these tools and skills, and what is the best method for teaching them to students of different academic majors? This article aims to answer this question by examining the three major options: Aristotelian logic, first-order predicate classical logic, and informal logic. I try to demonstrate philosophical and psychological reasons in favor of teaching informal logic as the main material in introductory courses in logic, specifically introductory courses aimed at students who do not major in logic.


Volume 4, Issue 15 (12-2011)
Abstract

In most of prose genres, in qajar era, there is a critical thinking which has caused the genres evolution. This Critical thinking is global, and we can recognize it in the first works in the beginning ages of Qajar era, after that, this approach more forcefully, has continued until Mashrooteh and it has fade gradually. Some of the prose genres and their changes, in this era, have been evaluated before, and some of them have been studied in this essay. The results are gathered, and compared. Critical approach has caused the evolution on the prose genres. Some of them have been abandoned; some of them have been changed significantly, so their relation with the previous cases has been cut. Some of them have been brought into being, and formed by this thinking, as independent ones, and after this era resume with rare changes. This fact proves that critical approach is the mainstream of prose genres evolution in the Qajar period.

Volume 6, Issue 2 (9-2016)
Abstract

The present study was conducted the effect of internal marketing on critical thinking according to mediator management styles. The research is implemented by descriptive - survey method and its statistic society is consisted of staff and general managers of hotels of Isfahan which between them using random - stratified sampling, 172 questionnaires were received and evaluated. To gather information from the questionnaires in this research internal marketing questionnaire constructed by author and critical thinking questionnaire of Vitli have been used that Its validity is verifiable and has been evaluated by professors and Cronbach's alpha was used to assess reliability. Obtained alpha for internal marketing is 0.87 and for critical thinking is 0.88 and for management styles is 0.90.To data analysis statistical methods of Amos correlation coefficient and SPSS software of data by Spearman software and regression analysis and structural equations were used. The results confirmed the presented conceptual model and show that there is a relationship between internal marketing and critical thinking of employees and also show that internal marketing have significant and positive effect on critical thinking with regard to management style.
Somayyeh Sabah, Mojgan Rashtchi,
Volume 7, Issue 7 (3-2016)
Abstract

 The present study intended to investigate the impact of using the two reflective practices of Personal Experience Narrative (PEN) versus Reflective Journal (RJ) writing in English on enhancing the in-service EFL teachers’ Critical Thinking Ability (CTA) in Iran. Sixty (36 female and 24 male) EFL teachers selected based on the convenience sampling were randomly divided into equal numbers making up two independent experimental PEN and RJ groups. The participants were initially pre-tested on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form A (WGCTA-FA) by Watson and Glaser (1980). The comparison of the pre-test scores via the independent samples t-test indicated no statistically significant difference between the CTA of the two groups at the onset of the study. Then the participants were given five short stories including Chopin’s The story of an hour (1894), O. Henry’s The last leaf (1907), Colby’s Confessions of a gallomaniac (1941), Achebe’s Dead men’s path (1953), and Grace’s Butterflies (1987). The PEN participants wrote PENs in response to themes of stories, whereas the RJ participants inscribed their reflections on the same stories in RJs. Subsequently, the participants in both groups were post-tested on the WGCTA-FA. The comparison of the post-test scores via the independent samples t-test showed that the PEN participants significantly improved in their inference and deduction ability. It should be mentioned that no statistically significant difference was observed between the post-test scores on recognition of assumptions, interpretation, and evaluation of arguments sub-components.
 
S. Esmaili, E. Mottaqi,
Volume 8, Issue 2 (5-2017)
Abstract

Reading comprehension skill is one of the fundamental and basic skill for understanding meanings and ideas available in the text. Attention to this skill especially for literary texts is one of the most important issues in the realm of language teaching. Using the right instruction methods for illuminating literary texts can confidently improve reading skills and reading comprehension of the students. Teaching reading comprehension texts based on critical thinking skills not only meets all the goals of literary texts, but also helps to improve the students’ reading comprehension. The aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of critical thinking skills on reading comprehension of Arabic literary texts among BA students of Arabic Language and Literature. The sample of the study consisted of 64 junior students of Arabic Language and Literature who were divided into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group was instructed based on critical thinking skills and the control group was instructed based on classical/traditional methods of teaching a text. The findings indicated that there is a significant difference between the performances of the groups and that critical thinking skills affects students’ reading comprehension skills.
The methodology for conducting this study followed a quasi- experimental design. The population of the study was all bachelor Arabic language and literature students of Iranian universities, among which 64 junior students of Shahid Beheshti and Yazd Universities were chosen as the experimental and control groups respectively.
The results showed that  there is a significant relation between the incorporation of critical thinking skills in teaching Arabic literary text and an increase in the students’ comprehension. This means that using the sub-skills of the skills” inference, recognition of assumptions, interpretation, evaluating the arguments and deduction” which were covered in the literature can lead to increasing the students’ comprehension.
 
 

Volume 9, Issue 33 (5-2016)
Abstract

  Critical thinking is the integration of knowledge, attitude, and practical skill. Today the scholars of education believe that one of the most important aims of academic learning is critical thinking. After an introduction on this subject, our study presents a short history of the scholarship on critical thinking along with the five principals of any act of critical thinking, namely: (1) Inference, (2) Recognition of assumption, (3) Deduction (4) Interpretation, and finally (5) Evaluation of argument. Critical thinking, unfortunately, has no place in the educational system for Persian. Using Watson-Glaser’s questionnaire, we have evaluated the evolution of critical thinking amongst the students of Persian (2009-2013) at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Based on our statistics, we have concluded that the critical thinking has not improved in those years.
Somayyeh Sabah, Mojgan Rashtchi,
Volume 13, Issue 1 (3-2022)
Abstract


This study investigated the quantitative and qualitative impacts of shifting the narrative point of view on the representation of critical thinking (CT) in Iranian EAP learners’ written narratives. Sixty (30 women and 30 men) students of psychology who were selected based on convenience sampling were randomly divided into two equal experimental groups of the first-person group (FPG) and third-person summary group (TPSG). The researchers initially administered Watson-Glaser critical thinking appraisal-form A questionnaire (Watson & Glaser, 1980). The independent samples t-test showed no statistically significant difference between the CT of the groups. Then the participants were given the short story of Butterflies (Grace, 1987). The TPSG participants inscribed their reflections on the story in narratives from the third-person perspective, whereas the FPG participants shifted the point of view and wrote first-person stories. The content analysis of the first- and third-person data based on Hatton and Smith’s (1995) taxonomy of writing types illustrated a statistically significant difference between the length and the number of descriptive writing and dialogical reflection clauses in first-person stories versus the number of the same clauses in third-person narratives. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups’ mean ranks of descriptive reflection and critical reflection clauses. The dialogicality principle of both first- and third-person storylines was shown to be more descriptive, less descriptive reflective, less and less dialogic reflective, and still less critical reflective. The qualitative analysis confirmed that the writings demonstrated a heteroglossia of different writing types.

1. Introduction
ESP aims to help learners use the L2 as a tool to communicate effectively in their professional workplaces or fields of study (Basturkmen, 2010). EAP is a text-based approach that identifies different types of discourses related to education in the university and encourages EAP learners to analyze the intended discourses and their contexts (Hyland, 2018). However, as a combination of critical pedagogy and EAP, critical EAP has expanded the scope of EAP and taken into account the socio-historical context of teaching and learning. This view does not mean that the field of critical EAP ignores the prerequisites of genre-based practice types and classroom interactions. However, it examines them from the complex and intertwined social identities of EAP teachers’ and EAP learners’ viewpoints (Benesch, 2009, 2012).
Despite the current emphasis on the role of critical thinking (CT) in EAP, teaching and practicing critical writing in EAP classes have been rarely considered (Williams, 2019). According to Bakhtin (1981, 1986), since every word, phrase, term, or narrative is polyphonic, its meaning is revealed in its intertextuality and context of use. The text-oriented tendencies to CT rely on overt representations of reflection in written passages and define it in terms of interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and composition of words in the text (Tang, 2009).
The research literature on CT in the writing of EAP students has shown the effectiveness of using the activity of inscribing narratives of personal experience and autobiography in the early stages of EAP courses (Ong, 2017). Thus, this study explored the quantitative and qualitative impacts of shifting the narrative point of view on the reflectivity of first- and third-person stories written by Iranian EAP learners. Sixty EAP learners of psychology who participated in this research were equally divided into the third-person summary group (TPSG) and the first-person group (FPG). The CT ability of the TPSG and FPG participants was pre-tested using the Watson-Glaser critical thinking appraisal-form A (Watson & Glaser, 1980) through the independent samples t-test procedure. Then they were given the short story of Butterflies (Grace, 1987). The TPSG participants wrote their reflections on the story in narratives from the third-person perspective, whereas the FPG participants shifted the point of view and inscribed first-person stories. The content of the first- and third-person narratives were analyzed based on Hutton and Smith’s (1995) classification of reflective writing types. The analysis and comparison of the number of reflective clause types found in the narratives written by the FPG and TPSG were performed via the Mann-Whitney U test procedure. Excerpts from the stories of both groups were analyzed qualitatively to discover the heteroglossia of various reflective writing types in both the first- and third-person narratives.
Research Questions:
1. Is there a significant difference between the length and number of descriptive writing, descriptive reflection, dialogic reflection, and critical reflection of first- and third-person narratives written by Iranian EAP learners according to Hutton and Smith’s classification of writing type?
2. What is the dialogicality principle of the first- and third-person narratives written by Iranian EAP learners?
3. How is heteroglossia represented in the first- and third-person narratives written in English by Iranian EAP learners?

2. Literature Review
The growth and development of English as the primary language of academic knowledge dissemination has affected the educational experiences of many university students because they have to master English language contracts in the academic discourse to understand not only their fields of study but also their learning process (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002). Given that EAP learners are intellectually mature enough when entering EAP courses and familiar with the problem-solving activities, this area may be a good platform for teaching the CT skills to them. Nevertheless, EAP education in Asia has been seriously criticized due to its lack of focus on teaching CT, as little research has been conducted on the instruction of CT and its relevance to EAP in Asia (Gunawardena & Petraki, 2014). There is no one right way to teach CT, and thus EAP teachers and educational institutions take a variety of approaches to design a CT-based curriculum. However, by supporting and engaging EAP learners, they can be helped to become more critical readers and thinkers in the process of achieving their study goals (Wilson, 2016). Thus, critical reviews of EAP courses should go beyond merely criticizing the theoretical foundations of the field and provide opportunities for change at the applied level and its implementation (Pearson, 2017).
     The study by Catterall and Ireland (2010) examined the effects of a CT-based approach on improving international students’ reflective writing at Huddersfield University’s School of Business during a critical EAP course. The EAP students participating in this experiment were introduced to design and justify a claim in English writing during several sessions. The EAP student participants explored various topics in the related academic discourses. The results of this study, while specifying the lack of CT in student participants’ writings, confirmed the positive effects of this approach on improving their critical writing skills.
          The study by Eastman and Maguire (2016) explored the positive effects of writing autobiographies on strengthening the reflective writing of 300 Ph.D. students in the UK during several workshops. To increase the critical voice of these EAP student participants, they were provided with a number of texts representing the genre of autobiography as role models. Eastman and Maguire acknowledged that vocational training is not limited to learning specialized knowledge in the relevant field of science and includes skills and concerns related to talking about oneself and one’s experiences and interactions with others. Writing first-person narratives improved the EAP student participants’ writing skills and deepened their ability to think critically.
          Xu and Li’s (2018) study examined the impacts of taking a genre- and process-based approach to the writing skills of Ph.D. students in a two-year course of EAP in China. Their study showed the lack of criticality in the English writings of these student participants as they had never been educated to master reflective writing. Thus, they merely made unsubstantiated claims; their writings were full of borrowed ideas and lacked any personal views or voices.

2.1. Critical EAP in Iran
Very limited research studies have examined the issue of critical EAP in Iran (Atai, Babaii, & Nili-Ahmadabadi, 2018). The main problems of EAP courses in Iran are the students’ low level of English language skills, the weak link between the policy and practice areas, the scattered and discrete goals, and the uninteresting activities that make students tired. Iranian university students do not learn English to the fullest in schools. Regardless of their fields of study, they enter universities with little L2 proficiency. Instead of being empowered to articulate their concerns about the goals of EAP courses, they are forced to do a series of exhausting tasks. Thus, significant issues such as critical EAP education, distribution of power and freedom in expression and practice in the classroom, polyphony, and the like have been neglected in EAP teaching in Iran (Tavakoli & Tavakol, 2018). Also, the role and agency of Iranian students in EAP courses have been very trivial, and due to their low level of English language skills, L2 skills are to be taught as the content of the EAP course (Vosoughi, Ghahremani Ghajar, & Navarchi, 2019). Zand-Moghadam and Khanlarzadeh’s (2020) study indicated the EAP teachers’ call for the need to improve the Iranian students’ CT skills. However, no study has explored which activity types cultivate and improve the CT ability and reflective writing skills of EAP students in Iran. Thus, considering the positive effects of writing narratives of personal experience on enhancing the CT and critical writing of EAP learners, the present study, for the first time, investigated the quantitative and qualitative impacts of shifting the point of view in the narrative on the CT and reflective writing skills of Iranian EAP students.

3. Methodology
Sixty participants (30 females and 30 males) who were randomly divided into two equal experimental groups took part in the study. They were selected from a range of students of psychology who entered the Islamic Azad University, Khorramabad Branch in the 97-98 academic year. The sampling was carried out based on the availability (convenience) procedure. The research was performed in October 2017. The participants’ age was between 19 and 25 years.
The FPG and TPSG participants were given Butterflies (Grace, 1987) short story. First- and third-person stories written by the participants were collected and used to determine the CT level reflected in the writings of Iranian EAP students. The FPG participants identified themselves with the protagonist of the story and retold the events from their own point of view, looking at their personal experiences. The TPGS participants narrated a summary of the same story from the third-person perspective. In order to analyze the content of first- and third-person stories in terms of the EAP participants’ use of reflective writing types, the well-known Hutton and Smith’s (1995) classification of reflective writing types was used because it clearly defines the four essential levels of critical thinking in writing. The first type of writing is descriptive, non-critical and provides only a report of the course of events. The second type is called descriptive reflection, which describes the author’s personal judgments of events. The third type is dialogic reflection, which expresses the author’s current assessment of past events and their views on the story. Critical reflection is the fourth type of critical writing, which shows the highest CT level and indicates the author’s historical and socio-cultural analysis of past events.
       The narratives obtained from this study were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative analysis of the data was based on calculating and comparing the number of different reflective writing clause types in the participants’ written stories via the independent t-test sampling procedure. Also, the mean scores obtained for each writing type were compared to determine the dialogicality principle of the first- and third-person stories. The qualitative analysis of the participants’ written stories was based on revealing their transitions between the different types of reflective writing clause types to express their feelings and thoughts. For this purpose, excerpts from first- and third-person stories were selected to indicate the heteroglossia in the written narratives.

4. Results
This study analyzed and compared the impacts of shifting the narrative point of view on the quantity and quality of reflective writing of Iranian EAP students. The related past research on inscribing personal narratives and autobiographies has confirmed the positive effects of using these tasks on developing the EAP learners’ CT skills and reflective writing. However, the results of the quantitative analysis showed that writing the first-person narrative by shifting the point of view of the original short story from the third-person to the first-person augmented the length of the stories written in English by the FPG participants. Also, the task of shifting the point of view significantly increased the number of descriptive writing and dialogic reflective writing clause types in the first-person stories compared to the number of clauses of descriptive writing and dialogic reflective writing in the third-person stories. Thus, the results of the present study that confirmed the greater degree of the effectiveness of using the task of shifting the point of view in the narrative and rewriting the storyline from the perspectives of and based on the EAP learners’ personal experiences are consistent with the findings of previous relevant research (Rashtchi, 2019; Sabah & Rashtchi, 2017). However, the statistical results showed that shifting the point of view did not make a statistically significant difference between the number of descriptive and critical reflective writing clause types in the stories written by both FPG and TPSG participants. Thus, the study indicated the effectiveness of both first- and third-person narrative writing activities in strengthening the Iranian EAP learners’ willingness to express their thoughts, emotions, and perspectives in the L2 and their CT ability. Also, despite the heteroglossia of the obtained written narratives, the dialogicality principle of both first- and third-person stories was more descriptive, less descriptive reflective, less and less dialogic reflective, and much less critical reflective. This result is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Shokouhi, Daram, & Sabah, 2011; Sabah & Rashtchi, 2016), which indicates that the promotion of CT and critical EAP in Iran has been rather neglected, and appropriate tasks and activities for achieving this goal have not been designed in EAP textbooks. This result confirmed the statement of Kiyani, Momenian, and Navidinia (2011) that there is a contradiction and lack of communication and needs assessment in the goals set in the national program for teaching foreign languages ​​in Iran. Atai, Iranmehr, and Babaii (2018) have also stated that there is a serious gap in the EAP policies in Iran, and thus the set goals need critical evaluation, meticulous analysis, and review.
    The qualitative analysis of the data revealed the heteroglossia in first- and third-person stories in English by Iranian EAP students participating in this research. The following excerpts selected from the stories of both groups serve as examples of the claim that the collected written narratives were not monolithic and enjoyed dialogicity. In order to differentiate different writing types, descriptive writing clauses are not marked in a particular way. Descriptive reflective clauses are underlined, dialogic reflective clauses are italicized, and critical reflective clauses are typed in bold, respectively.
     Excerpt (1) is an excerpt from the first-person story of one of the participants. It shows a transition from critical reflective writing to dialogic reflective writing. The subsequent two descriptive reflective clauses ultimately lead to critical reflective writing. Thus, the EAP student participant has put different types of writing and different levels of reflection in dialogue with each other to express the character’s thoughts and feelings.
I was always told to listen to the teacher. Now my teacher’s opinion is different from my grandfather’s. And I do not know which opinion is correct. The difference of opinion causes a person to suffer. Something that has been experienced for years is different from something that has been taught to his. (1)
Passage (2) is taken from a third-person story written by one of the EAP student participants in the TPSG. In this piece of writing, various types of reflective writing are evident. Five descriptive writing clauses follow each other, and a critical reflective phrase is used to connect the chain of descriptions to express the EAP student author’s point of view.
… She opened her book. She read: I killed all the butterflies.” Her grandparents enjoyed her story, but her teacher did not like it. External factors can affect our perceptions. …  (4)
 

Volume 15, Issue 58 (8-2022)
Abstract

The new fields of Persian language and literature have fundamental drawbacks besides their benefits. The lack of theoretical foundations in defining these fields is the most important drawback. The lack of specific, methodical theoretical foundations has caused the involvement of some unconscious presuppositions in the targeting and definition of these fields and their curriculums. In this article, by reviewing some of the subfields, these non-methodical foundations and their blind spots have been discussed. The most important of these items are (1) traditional and theme-oriented view of classification and definitions, (2) lack of problematic and methodical view in the definition of subfields and curricula, (3) reductionism in selecting the texts and subjects because of superficial focusing on localization, and (4) lack of interdisciplinary approach. These drawbacks are in close relation to each other. The greatest impact of these drawbacks is the lack of research findings in the academic literature. In this paper, we have focused attention on the interdisciplinary approach for methodological and research expansion of the field of Persian language and literature.
Extended Abstract
The most important of these blind spots are: traditional and theme-oriented view of classification and definitions; lack of problematic and methodical view in the definition of subfields and curricula; reductionism in selecting the texts and subjects because of superficial focusing on localization; lack of interdisciplinary approach. The view based on a common and conventional understanding of literature, literary works, the meaning of texts, genre classifications, and the like has determined the formation of most of these areas. It has also influenced the definition of teaching. In addition, the tendency toward localization has, first, made it difficult to use the critical view, and second, with directional and non-academic definitions, has removed many texts from the topics covered in postgraduate courses.
By marginalizing the importance of theoretical foundations, problem thinking, and the critical view, these features have led to a shift away from research-based approaches in new fields. The explicit or implicit avoidance of addressing new topics in courses and curricula has resulted in papers and dissertations that benefit from new approaches being written independently of course topics, without taking advantage of the courses passed and official intentions of the field. The lack of theoretical foundations in the definition of these areas and the recourse to some non-specialized foundations and presuppositions has led to the fact that the objectives introduced in the formation of most of these areas have non-literary motives (ideological, social, religious, mystical, etc.).
Some of the aspects of non-methodological planning and lack of theoretical and problem-oriented foundations in the course headings: a topic-oriented approach (in the traditional sense) to texts, a non-methodological approach to theories and their transformation into fixed patterns for implementation and adaptation to texts, a non-methodological approach to research methods and their transformation into historiography, literary history, and bibliography. However, an important point overlooked by planners is to use the capacity of interdisciplinarity to develop the field of literature instead of using intradisciplinary, text- and topic-oriented divisions based on the conventional criteria of literary types. Because of its problem-oriented and innovative nature, interdisciplinarity helps to open new perspectives on academic literature. By highlighting new topics, interdisciplinarians also contribute their methodology. For this reason, they contribute to the development of literary research without analyzing and categorizing literary texts by drawing perspectives and approaches.
The purpose of this article is to remind that there is a lack of adequate theoretical foundations in new areas of Persian language and literature and that the presentation of corrective proposals requires a separate article as an independent writing topic. It seems that in order to solve the existing problems, instead of relying on the current criteria, one can rely on criteria such as interdisciplinarity, diversity of approaches (instead of diversity of texts and conventional genres) and even historical divisions related to intellectual and linguistic developments in defining new areas and literary topics in class preparation. All this will lead to the desired result if any action towards introducing the subjects of literature or attempting to design new areas is based on firm and sound theoretical foundations and far from conventional understanding.
Using the experience of other countries' in developing academic literature is also a measure to revise and reform the fields of Persian language and literature. These reforms will help expand the frontiers of literary knowledge and strengthen research and critical faculties rather than relying on local, political and ideological affiliations.
 

Volume 22, Issue 4 (10-2015)
Abstract

This study is intended to examine the relationship between critical thinking disposition and English learning achievement among Iranian high school third-grade EFL learners mediated by emotional intelligence. A sample of 264 students (145 males and 119 females) was assessed for their level of critical thinking disposition and emotional intelligence. Participant's scores on their final English test were also used as the measurement of their English achievement. The results revealed a positive correlation between total critical thinking dispositions (r=.506, p<.01) and its subscales i.e., engagement(r=.33), maturity(r=47), and innovativeness (r=44.6) with English learning achievement. The results also suggested that emotional intelligence acts as a mediator of the relationship between critical thinking disposition and English learning achievement. 
 
 

Volume 23, Issue 1 (1-2017)
Abstract

Lying doubt is the most serious doubts about the divine prophets that has long been fueled by resorting to the conspicuity of some verses and traditions. In this paper after specifing concepts of Lying and Dissimulation in terminology and technical expression, analysis four doubt of lying related to Prophet Ibrahim and a doubt of lying Prophet Yusuf (pbuh) and assessed the solutions proposed.
In response to the question of lie mixed with Shrek and the Sabian’s Prophet Ibrahim, we accepted promotion of monotheistic position of Abraham’s solution, and in the case of malingering false; he perceives diagnosis disease or its tim by looking at the stars and this solution adjusts with the apparent of verses.
And lying about breaking the large idols, is justified by white lie by virtue of dissimulation. And named his wife Sarah as his sister, all traditions are fictional.
And in case of doubt or approval lies by prophet Yusuf (pbuh), white lie is a solution and also it was justified by the permission of Allah. Other solutions about all every five doubts are unjustified.

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