The aim of the present study was to examine the internal reliability, content validity, construct validity, and concurrent validity of the Persian translation/Farsi version of the Oxford Happiness Inventory. The Oxford Happiness Inventory and Fordyce Happiness Inventory were completed by a sample of 727 Iranian university students. Findings confirmed the internal reliability, construct, and concurrent validity of the Oxford Happiness Inventory. Thus, it can be recommended for use as a trait-measure of happiness among Iranian samples.

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Background:Advantageous times for different people are different to some extent, considering the effective physiological changes during the circadian rhythm, in terms of the peak time of physiological activities. The goal of this study is to compare the educational achievement of students, with different morning–evening habits, in completing difficult and easy courses.Materials and Methods:This research is a retrospective descriptive–analytical study, which has been conducted on students of the fifth semester of General Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. The morning–evening habits of the students were determined by the Horne-Strauss 19-item questionnaire. The students were asked to determine the courses that were ’difficult’ and ’easy,’ using a researcher-made questionnaire. The students’ scores in the considered courses during the five semesters were obtained from the Education Department of the Faculty and analyzed using the descriptive t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and the multivariate regression test in the SPSS software.Results:Sixty-three students (67% girls and 33% boys) participated in this study, of whom 11, 60, and 29% were morning, morning–evening, and evening students, respectively. The mean scores of the difficult courses in all five semesters were reduced in the evening pattern compared to the morning and morning–evening patterns. Reduction of the mean score in the difficult courses, in the evening group, compared with the morning–evening and morning groups was observed in all five semesters among girls, but in three semesters among boys.Conclusion:This study showed that evening students experienced academic failure in difficult courses, which required a more cognitive performance. It is recommended that difficult specialized courses be presented at hours when all student groups have a better cognitive performance

Background: Soft skills are the key indicators of success and quality of performance in various professions, including the dental profession. The skills are the main tools for enhancing the quality of technical work in Dentistry. Hence, the aim of this study was to identify and prioritize the soft skills in dental profession. Materials and Methods: The study employed a mixed methods research. In the qualitative phase, the dental skills were identified using a semi-structured interview with faculty members and dental students. In the quantitative phase, the soft skills were prioritized with Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The data analysis was using Expert Choice software. Results: The results showed that the dental profession to improve the quality of performance needs to 29 soft skills in six categories. In professional ethics, work ethics (with weight of 0.212) and responsibility (0.188); in artistic skills, handicrafts (0.616); in cognitive skills, decision-making ability (0.290) and spatial thinking (0.249); in communication skills, verbal/nonverbal communication and listening (0.266), and patience (0.240); in individual characteristics, stress management (0.381) and self-esteem (0.260); and finally, in management skills, time management (0.481) are among the most important soft skills in dental profession. Conclusion: Identify and prioritize the soft skills can help to improve the quality of performance the dental profession. Therefore, it is recommended to integrate these skills into the dentistry curriculum. Moreover, by increasing the number of studies the essential backgrounds for developing soft skills in dentistry education will be provided.