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 investigated the effect of prior knowledge on the listening comprehension performance of fl learners. twenty students, male and female, drawn from the two intact groups of the senior and junior english language and literature majors were chosen as the participants of this study . the two groups were then randomly assigned into the experimental and control group. the experimental gr...

asymmetric membranes are widely used in many industrial membrane separation processes. the major advantage of membrane filtration over the conventional process is its ability to remove a wider spectrum of particles without using any chemicals. hollow fiber configuration offer many advantages over flat-sheet or tubular membranes. the spinning process of hollow fiber may look simple, yet it is te...

there has been a gradual shift of focus from the study of rule systems, which have increasingly been regarded as impoverished, … to the study of systems of principles, which appear to occupy a much more central position in determining the character and variety of possible human languages. there is a set of absolute universals, notions and principles existing in ug which do not vary from one ...

this study investigated the potential role of age in inductive and deductive grammar learning among iranian foreign language learners. the experimental population consisted of our randomly selected samples including two groups of children (with age of exposure to english within 8-13), and two groups of adults (with age of exposure to english within 11-13). thus, the comparison was between ch...

abstract previous studies on willingness to communicate (wtc) have shown the influence of many individual or situational factors on students’ tendency to engage in classroom communication, in which wtc has been viewed either at the trait-level or situational level. however, due to the complexity of the notion of willingness to communicate, the present study suggests that these two strands are ...

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 present study sought to examine whether a task-based approach could have an impact on raising awareness of collocations. moreover, it sought to investigate the facilitative role of consciousness-raising tasks of collocations in the communicative instances of use. to this end, 68 intermediate learners of english were selected via a placement test. the participants were taught with classroom ...

this study examined the effects of collaborative strategic reading and direct instruction in persuasion on iranian high school students persuasive writing and attitudes. students in three intact classes were assigned to one of three treatment conditions: collaborative strategic reading and direct instruction in persuasion or direct instruction in persuasion or a control group. treatment effects...

the main purpose of this study was to investigate any relationship between high school efl teachers metaphorical understandings of their role in class and their self-efficacy beliefs. teachers metaphors were elicited through two different prompts: one picturing what they believed a language teacher should be like in class, and the other demonstrating what they are actually like in class; such...