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...

the aim of the present study was to determine the in?uence of presence or absence of corpus luteum (cl) on hormonal and metabolites composition of follicular ?uid (ff) harvested from different sized follicles and its relationship with blood serum concentrations in sanjabi ewes. ovaries and blood samples were collected from 60 clinically healthy adult ewes (sanjabi breed) 1–3 years of age in dio...

the aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship among efl learners learning style preferences, use of language learning strategies, and autonomy. a total of 148 male and female learners, between the ages of 18 and 30, majoring in english literature and english translation at islamic azad university, central tehran were randomly selected. a package of three questionnaires was ad...

like any other learning activity, translation is a problem solving activity which involves executing parallel cognitive processes. the ability to think about these higher processes, plan, organize, monitor and evaluate the most influential executive cognitive processes is what flavell (1975) called “metacognition” which encompasses raising awareness of mental processes as well as using effectiv...

esl/efl books play a crucial role in shaping language learners worldview of gender roles in society. the present study investigated the status of sexism in two sets of efl textbooks, one developed by non-native iranian authors (ili series) and the other by native authors (top notch series). first, two books from each series was selected randomly. then, a quantitative analysis was carried out wi...

although there are studies on pragmatic assessment, to date, literature has been almost silent about native and non-native english raters’ criteria for the assessment of efl learners’ pragmatic performance. focusing on this topic, this study pursued four purposes. the first one was to find criteria for rating the speech acts of apology and refusal in l2 by native and non-native english teachers...

nowadays enhancing critical thinking in learners is considered one of the foreign language teachers’ tasks due to its high position in foreign language classrooms. when it comes to selecting materials for language classrooms, there are obviously some criteria that teachers should apply. the present study aimed at a critical thinking based analysis of ten picture story books and ten folktales th...

the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of implicit focus on form through input flooding and the effect of noticing, explicit focus on form on linguistic accuracy. to fulfill the purpose of the study, 86 iranian pre-intermediate efl learners of one of the language institutes were chosen by means of administering ket as the homogeneity test. these learners were pretested throug...

abstract this study examined the relationship between noticing pronunciation and the improvement pronunciation by administering a 50 item story, as proficiency- test in order to investigate the effectiveness of noticing pronunciation on the improvement of pronunciation. accordingly 60 qualified students were selected and assigned to the two groups of experimental and control randomly, each gr...

1. to determine whether difference in birth body mass influenced growth performance in pipistrellus kuhlii we studied a total of 12 captive-born neonates. bats were assigned to two body mass groups: light birth body mass (lbw: 0.89 ± 0.05, n=8) and heavy birth body mass (hbw: 1.35 ± 0.08, n=4). heavier body mass at birth was associated with rapid postnatal growth (body mass and forearm length) ...