according to cheng (1999), in recent esl/efl literature, asian (especially east asian) learners of english as a foreign/second language have been arguably reported as reticent and passive learners. the most common allegations are that these students are reluctant to participate in classroom discourse; they are unwilling to give responses; they do not ask questions; and they are passive and over...

abstract: about 60% of total premium of insurance industry is pertained?to life policies in the world; while the life insurance total premium in iran is less than 6% of total premium in insurance industry in 2008 (sigma, no 3/2009). among the reasons that discourage the life insurance industry is the problem of adverse selection. adverse selection theory describes a situation where the inf...

a novel acrylic acid-functionalized fe3o4 magnetic nanoparticle with a core-shell structure was developed for utilization as a heterogeneous organosuperacid in chemical transformations. the structural, surface, and magnetic characteristics of the nanosized catalyst were investigated by various techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (tem), thermogravimetric analysis (tga), and ft-ir...

the construct of self-efficacy has received increasing attention in research over the past two decades. many studies have been carried out 1.3 significance of the study this study has pedagogical implications since improving students’ self- efficacy and autonomy is important for promoting actual performance on classroom academic tasks. in academic settings, it has been shown that self-effi...

the main objective in sampling is to select a sample from a population in order to estimate some unknown population parameter, usually a total or a mean of some interesting variable. a simple way to take a sample of size n is to let all the possible samples have the same probability of being selected. this is called simple random sampling and then all units have the same probability of being ch...

recent studies in scientific education as well as foreign and second language instruction suggest that thinking has rarely been an integral part of education and training in classroom. some scholars decried the lack of emphasis on thinking in the institutes and schools. they noted that memorization and drills were rewarded,while inquiry, reflection, and consideration of alternatives were frowne...

with the introduction of communicative language teaching, a large number of studies have concerned with students’ oral participation in language classrooms. although the importance of classroom participation is evident, some language learners are unwilling to engage in oral activities. this passivity and unwillingness to participate in language classroom discussions is known as “reticence”. rev...

the application of e-learning systems - as one of the solutions to the issue of anywhere and anytime learning – is increasingly spreading in the area of education. content management - one of the most important parts of any e-learning system- is in the concern of tutors and teachers through which they can obtain means and paths to achieve the goals of the course and learning objectives. e-learn...

any change in the refractive index of a laser active medium can lead to serious degradation of beam quality, laser beam modes, laser performance and variation in the intensity distribution. alteration in the refractive index of laser active medium is especially notable in high power lasers. it is clear that in the laser beam production, the pumping agent induces a great amount of heat which...

there are two major theories of measurement in psychometrics: classical test theory (ctt) and item-response theory (irt). despite its widespread and long use, ctt has a number of shortcomings, which make it problematic to be used for practical and theoretical purposes. irt tries to solve these shortcomings, and provide better and more dependable answers. one of the applications of irt is the as...