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...

this study purported to compare and contrast the use of self-mention and evidentials as two mtadiscourse features in opinion columns of persian and english newspapers. the theoretical basis of this study is the idea that metadiscourse features vary across cultural boundaries. for this purpose, 150 persian and 150 english opinion columns were collected based on three factors of topic, audience a...

abstract a fundamental study of “historio-graphic metafiction” and “literary genres”, as introduced in “new historical philosophy”, and tracing them in the works of julian barnes having studied the two novels, the porcupine and arthur & george, by julian barnes, the researcher has applied linda hutcheon’s historio-graphic metafictional theories to them. the thesis is divided into five cha...

abstract: advertisements are the most accessible type of authentic materials, and this is one reason why they are used more and more in english teaching classes. for this cause, studies in the field of advertisements are very widespread nowadays. for pun is one aspect which makes advertisements more interesting, it is used more than before in advertisements. use of puns makes an advertisement m...

the study reflected in this thesis aims at finding out relationships between critical thinking (ct), and the reading sections of tofel and ielts tests. the study tries to find any relationships between the ct ability of students and their performance on reading tests of tofel and academic ielts. however, no research has ever been conducted to investigate the relationship between ct and the read...

this research is about the political economy of china in central asia. in this research the political & economic interactions affected on chinas political economy in central asia are examined. chinas goal of presence in central asia including political-security, economic and energy goals is described in one part. in another part, the trade relations between china and central asian countries ar...