Academic engagement explains the extent to which learners identify with and value academic conclusions, and take part in academic and non-academic activities. The present study explores, quantitatively, a causal model of both psycho-social and motivational factors in academic engagement and their potential impacts on academic achievement outcome. The sample of this research consisted of 480 undergraduate students at Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran who were selected by stratified random sampling method. The instruments which used in this study were The Academic Success Inventory, Boekaerts" Motivation control scale (1987), Kuhl's Action Control scale (ACS-90) (1994), Pintrich et al.'s Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (1991), Schraw & Dennison's Metacognitive awareness inventory (MAI) (1994), Boekaerts' Intended/actual goals scale (1987), Zimbardo & Boyd's future time perception inventory (ZPTI) (1999), & Schaufeli, et al"s Academic Engagement scale (2002). Structural equation modeling (SEM) through AMOS-22 was used for data analysis. The results indicated that motivational control-emotional states & competencies, self-efficacy, metacognition, action control-initiative persistence & disengage persistence-had significant effects on academic engagement. Also academic engagement can affect academic performance mediating

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Obtaining good scores in IELTS has become a concern for many foreign language learners throughout the world. Therefore, any relevant research to pave the way of applicants' achievement may be considered significant. This study deals with an indispensable element of IELTS writing tasks as teaching cohesive devices and it verifies the effect on writing performance of IELTS task 2. To this end, 30 participants at intermediate level took an IELTS test writing task 2 as the pretest. Then, they went under a 10 session treatment program to learn cohesive devices. At the end, they took a parallel form of IELTS task 2. The scores were obtained. The inter-rater reliability was met. The results of the paired Samples T-test showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of pre and post-tests of the participants after being exposed to cohesive devices treatment.

Fluid intelligence (Gf) is the ability to solve novel problems without resorting to information obtained from previous training (Cattell, 1987: Horn & Cattell, 1966). However, several research studies (Au et al., 2015; Jaeggi et al., 2008; Kundu et al., 2013) have shown that Gf may be responsive to training if it is decomposed to its components, which are working memory capacity (WMC), fluid reasoning and visuospatial ability. Nonetheless, there are some counterarguments proposed by some researchers saying that Gf may not be improved through training (Chooi & Thompson, 2012; Harrison et al., 2013; Redick et al., 2013). In this study 60 Iranian intermediate students majoring in Psychology were randomly assigned into two groups of control (Gco) and experimental (Gex). Both groups had 6 sessions of writing treatment. Besides, Gex was exposed to n-back task, Cattell’s test and Raven’s test for 12 more sessions,4 sessions for each task. The results showed that the exposure to Gf components could significantly affect learning connectors.

Globalization is a phenomenon that makes any country to contact with the whole world and China is not an exception. Globalization has a lot of cultural influences on all the countries over the world. This paper reviews the literature about the issue of globalization, politeness and politeness strategies used by Chinese English learners and their counterpart Native Americans. Furthermore, the present paper attempts to find the sources of these "cultural mismatches". This paper ends with the implications of this concept in the field of language learning and teaching.