Negotiation

Most of the time, Groups/Communities are involved in negotiations and disputations due to their various interests. They are always trying to pursuit their aspiration to embrace changes and influence on events. Although sometimes these groups are not completely opposed to each other and their intention is just to get the desired results, almost always their conditions are in contrast with each other. These conflicts prevent negotiators from approaching desired acceptable solutions. For improving the negotiations, resolving the conflicts and reaching satisfactory decisions, Drama theory is applied. This theory is based on game theory. In this paper, Iran Nuclear talks with 5+1 Group will be discussed as an applicable case for drama theory.

Educators often employ various training techniques to reduce raters’ subjectivity. Negotiation is a technique which can assist novice raters to co-construct a shared understanding of the writing assessment when rating collaboratively. There is little research, however, on rating behaviors of novice raters while employing negotiation techniques and the effect of negotiation on their understanding of writing and rubric features. This study uses a qualitative method to keep track of 11 novice raters’ scoring behaviors and examine their textual foci during three phases of scoring through an analytic rubric: pre-negotiation, negotiation, and post-negotiation. To ensure triangulation, multiple sources of data including raters’ verbal protocols of independent scoring during the initial and final phases, audio-recorded interactions in the negotiation phase, and semi-structured interviews were gathered and analyzed. Results indicated that in their initial independent rating, raters mostly scored based on their understanding of the writing skill and the writing features that were important to them, but negotiation sessions aided them to refine their judgments and attend to a wider array of textual features more consistently and in line with the rubric, thereby expanding their understanding of the rubric categories. Post-negotiation ratings were also more similar to negotiation than prenegotiation ratings, meaning that the raters attended to more features of the rubric for scoring. The findings may have implications for rater training. In the absence of expert raters to train novice raters, negotiation can be considered a useful technique to improve raters’ understanding of the rubric features.

Letter of Credit is an international payment instrument whereby the issuing bank undertakes to pay the beneficiary, against presentation of certain stipulated documents, according to the conditions of the Letter of Credit. Discounting of LC for the short-term financing of the seller, due to the independent and irrevocable undertaking of the bank to make payment, is prevalent. Beneficiary gets the amount of the credit immediately (after discount rate deduction) in consideration of the assignment of the credit in discounting practice. Now, the main question is: how will the assignment of rights and proceeds under the Letter of Credit be executable and what will be its consequences? Hence, by surveying different methods of assignment of rights in accordance with LC, we study discounting Acceptance and Deferred Payment LCs as two kinds of deferred LCs. In discounting practices of LCs, if a fraud being discovered after the discounting transaction but before the payment due date, the discounting bank would be able to recover payment from issuing bank or confirming bank. According to our analysis, the most promising way for the assignment of rights and reducing the risk of discounting for the discounting bank is "Negotiation" of LC. Acceptance LC makes a favorable opportunity for discounting purposes because it includes bill of exchange as a negotiable instrument, and there is an organized secondary market for Acceptances.

Findings on recast as feedback on learners’ erroneous forms tend to be less than conclusive or confirmatory. Also, the conventional formulations in literature give partial accounts of recasting as an effective methodological practice. The present study proposes recast enriched by negotiation (REN) on the learners’ part as an alternative. For investigating the hypothetical effect, three all-female groups were concentrated on, namely explicit feedback, recast and REN. Summary writing task as post-test concentrated on the learners’ accuracy in terms of error-free T units, and complexity regarding word per sentence ratio as well as lexical density. One-way ANOVA for three independent samples and post hoc analyses revealed that accuracy and word per sentence ratio did not vary significantly; however, lexical density improved as a result of REN. Findings and implications of the study are discussed in the light of methodological potentials and literature.  

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of two multi-step oral-revision processes as feedback providing tools on Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing achievement. The participants taking part in this study were 45 Iranian EFL students who were randomly assigned into three groups. The participants of the groups were given three argumentative writing assignments, each assignment demanding three separate drafts. In the control group, the participants revised their essays in response to teacher's written feedback, while the participants of the two experimental groups experienced oral-revision talks with their teacher or a peer. Two sets of quantitative and qualitative data were collected: Argumentative essays written at the beginning and the end of the semester and interviews. The results of the quantitative aspect of the study revealed the significant outperformance of the two experimental groups. Moreover, the data provided through interviews revealed some differences in terms of the effectiveness of feedback between the two experimental groups. The participants of the peer-led group reported more awareness of the rhetorical structures and an ability to revise surface errors. While, the teacher-led group reported more global writing concerns like content, organization of ideas, and discourse. The obtained results point out that the mutual co-construction of participation roles and certain combinations of negotiation and scaffolding let the teacher provide a supportive conversational environment and assistance in accordance with the proficiency of learners of the teacher-led group to promote greater learner participation.

Objective: This research aimed to compare the effectiveness of therapist-assisted couple therapy and emotion-focused couple therapy on psychological well-being, negotiation enhancement, and aggression reduction in women victims of spousal violence. Methods: The study was applied, field-based, and quasi-experimental, employing a pre-test, post-test design with a control group. The sample consisted of couples attending counseling and psychotherapy centers in Qom during the second half of 2021. Out of these, 45 couples were randomly assigned after entry criteria control into three groups: emotion-focused treatment group (15 couples), therapist-assisted treatment group (15 couples), and a control group (15 couples). The research tools included the Strauss et al. (1979) Conflict Tactics Scales and the Ryff (1989) Psychological Well-Being Scales, which were administered to the female victims in three phases: pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. The emotion-focused group received Johnson’s (2003) training package over nine sessions, and the therapist-assisted group received Aghayousefi et al.’s (2020) training package over eight sessions. The control group received no intervention. Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA and SPSS software version 26. Findings: Results showed that both emotion-focused and therapist-assisted couple therapies significantly reduced aggression (F = 90.30, p < .001), increased negotiation (F = 64.47, p < .001), and enhanced psychological well-being (F = 103.81, p < .001) in the female victims of spousal violence, with these effects maintained at follow-up. However, the emotion-focused therapy package was more successful in improving psychological well-being, negotiation, and reducing aggression than the therapist-assisted therapy package. Conclusion: The findings suggest that both emotion-focused and therapist-assisted couple therapies are effective interventions for resolving conflicts and improving psychological well-being.