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Teacher Perfectionism and Iranian English Language Learners’ Motivation and Achievement Rezvani, Reza; Pakdaman, Safiyeh; Bigdeli, Rouhollah Askari
Beyond Words Vol 3, No 2 (2015)
Publisher : Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya

Show Abstract | Download Original | Original Source | Check in Google Scholar | DOI: 10.33508/bw.v3i2.739

Abstract

Educational psychology has recently reflected a policy shift from focusing on “what goes wrong” in schools, including psychological, physical, and educational disabilities, to recognizing and promoting strengths and positive aspects of students and their environments. Within this scope, some lines of research have examined the extent to which setting personal high standards influences such positive outcomes as educational achievement and high level of motivation. The present study was motivated by the concern that Iranian English language teachers' setting high standards, i.e. perfectionism, may predict English language learners’ motivation and language achievement. Through cluster random sampling, a total of 30 English language teachers with more than one year of experience and 300 elementary English language learners were selected from English Language Institutes in Fars province, Iran. Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism scale and Motivations Underlying English Language Learning questionnaire were used to measure teachers' perfectionism and learners’ language learning motivation, respectively. The learners' final scores in the English courses were collected as a measure of their language learning achievement. The result of simple regression analysis revealed that the teachers' perfectionism did not predict English language learners’ motivation and language achievement. In other words, Iranian English language teachers' perfectionism did not account for any variance in these two variables of interest. Keywords: Perfectionism, Motivation, Language Learning Achievement
A Cross-disciplinary Study of Hedging Expressions in English Articles of Iranian Writers Rezvani, Reza; Javadi, Mohammad
Beyond Words Vol 9, No 1 (2021): May
Publisher : Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya

Show Abstract | Download Original | Original Source | Check in Google Scholar | DOI: 10.33508/bw.v9i1.2517

Abstract

Research on the use of hedging strategies as one of the key issues of rhetorical organization of academic texts has gained growing attention during the past few decades. The present study aimed to explore the frequency and form of hedging expressions in the abstracts of Iranian writers’ English research articles where findings and claims were more explicitly projected. To this end, a random sample of 200 abstracts (50 each) was drawn equally from the four subfields of chemistry and mathematics, and philosophy and English randomly selected from the two academic fields of Soft Sciences and Hard Sciences respectively as suggested in Biglan’s (1973) typology of academic disciplines. The tally and analysis of the tokens of the hedge expressions indicated that the abstracts from the soft sciences differed from those from the hard sciences in terms of both frequency and form. The results revealed that the writers from the soft sciences tended to employ more hedge expressions than hard sciences writers. More specifically, whereas soft sciences writers utilized more modals, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, their counterparts opted for more conditional expressions. Moreover, epistemic and cognition verbs were found to be the most frequently used hedging expressions in both sciences. This study discusses the research and pedagogical implications of the findings in the context of Iranian academia.