Journal of Management and Planning in Educational Systems
Year:2018 | Volume:11 | Issue:2 (21) |Papers Count:9

Non-governmental and non-profit universities and higher education institutions, as sub-systems of higher education in Iran are facing various problems which have affected their performance. This study is categorized in survey-type studies and is questionnaire based. The research population consists of such educational institution directors, out of whom 201 were randomly selected across the country. This method of sampling is called stratified random sampling. The research finding indicates that non-profit institutions are facing problems in scientific and research area including sheer focus on science transfer and lack of production in this area, research inadequacy, and incapacitation in holding scientific conferences. In the field of education, they also face impediments such as vacant seats, similarity of educational fields in the neighboring institutes, incapacity in offering some fields of study, and shortcomings in employing the graduates and insufficient number of faculty members.

The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the barriers and factors influencing inefficiency of research at Farhangian University. Regarding the purpose of study and the necessity of consideration of different factors affecting the inefficiency of research at Farhangian University, the researcher used a theory-oriented qualitative method. Participants were selected from supervisors and vice chancellors of Farhangian Campuses, research experts of university, active students, faculty members and lecturers of the university using purposive sampling method. Since the strategies of research were qualitative and the grounded theory was used in this study, the data which gathered through in-depth interviews with participants were analyzed in three stages of free or open, axial, and selective coding. The results showed that the infrastructural, economic, educational, cultural, communicative, structure-administrative, managerial-administrative and individual-motivational difficulties and obstacles are challenges that will influence the inefficiency of research and the production of science at Farhangian University. On these basis, some strategies were identified as solutions for barriers and research problems at this university including modifying management structure, modifying the structure of admitting instructors and upgrading their academic levels, increasing financial resources, facilities and management, improving and paying attention to students' motivation issues, changing the attitude and modifying the nature of the university – modifying the management and research policies.

Plagiarism has been receiving an unprecedented attention in recent years, especially among the academia. Despite the efforts of universities and university professors to find ways to prevent students from the academic misconduct, the problem persists. In the opinion of many researchers this issue has even increased. The main purpose of this article is to help Iranian universities combat the epidemic of plagiarism. In other words, it strives to heighten the universities’ awareness of the importance of having a clear policy on plagiarism-especially on their websites. To achieve this goal and introduce practical and research-based solutions, the researcher examined website contents of 133 universities and educational institutes accredited by Iran’ s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology to find out if they contain any policy statements on plagiarism. The results indicated an absence of content relevant to the concept from the majority of the websites, suggesting that in most Iranian universities students may be deprived of an adequate education on avoiding plagiarism and on the significance of academic honesty for that matter. This study argues that to effectively tackle the issue of plagiarism, it is absolutely necessary that the educational institutions not take students’ familiarity with the concept and of ways to avoid it for granted. They need to realize that plagiarism is a critical issue which requires major attention as well as a coherent and comprehensive educative approach to deal with.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Hamadan board schools and compare it with ordinary schools. The research method was ex-post facto. The statistical population was all of the teachers of the board and ordinary schools of Hamadan province. 62 schools and 485 teachers were selected as the samples using stratified sampling method. Data collection tools consisted of a Job satisfaction questionnaire by Bryffield and Roth (1951) with a reliability of 0. 84, Organizational Health questionnaire by Saatchi et al. (2011) with a reliability of 0. 94, Otley and Akif's Inventory of Innovation (1982) with a reliability of 0. 88 and a questionnaire on school education quality (Sanjari et al., 2006) with a reliability of 0. 98. Using t-test and one way ANOVA, the difference between the normal schools and board schools was significant in organizational health components (t= 0/46 = 2, p> 0. 05) and the quality of educational affairs (t= 32. 27, 0> p). However, there was no difference in organizational innovation (t= 0. 77; p= 0. 48) and job satisfaction (t= 0. 4; p= 0. 69). In components in which significant difference could be seen, the board schools were in a better position. In terms of educational level, there was a significant difference between the courses including organizational innovation (F= 6. 02; p> 0. 05), organizational health (F= 18. 51, p<0. 05), job satisfaction (F= 11. 96, p <0. 05) and the quality of education (F= 32. 08, p< 0. 05).

The purpose of this study was to design a model for competencies of department chairs. The statistical population was all students (n: 15724) and faculty members (n: 239) of Islamic Azad university of Kerman. Research method was a mixed one. In the qualitative section, research method was grounded theory and in quantitative section it was a survey. The procedure of conducting the study was comprised of three parts; 1) extraction of competencies by grounded theory; 2) validation of competencies by inferential statistics; and 3) competencies prioritizing using Analytical Hierarchy Process. In the first part, sampling method was stratified purposeful and data collection instrument was Semi-structured interview. In the second part, sampling method was stratified random and data collection instrument was a closed responses questionnaire. In the third part, sampling method was purposeful and data collection instrument was a questionnaire of competencies paired comparisons. The result suggests a model of competencies consisting of 11 core competencies as well as 62 sub competencies. Core competencies were in order of importance: Ethical, Administrative – Monitoring, Personal, Motivational, Technological, Conceptual, Communicational, Cultural, Professional, Political, and Economic – Entrepreneurial.

The purpose of this study is to study the effect of school culture and family’ s cultural capital on academic performance of students. Research plan used in this research is the semi experimental study and methodology is ex-post facto research in factorial design. The research instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire and the research population was third grade female students in all public and private high schools in Shahriyar city in the academic year of 1392-1393. The population was 660 subjects, 244 students as sample were selected for this study. The results indicated that school culture and family’ s cultural capital have a direct impact on academic performance. If school culture is evaluated better, students’ performance becomes better, and if cultural capital is enriched, student educational performance becomes better. Also the interaction between school culture and family’ s cultural capital affected students’ educational performance.

Performance evaluation of educational departments in universities has an important role in promoting educational and research performance. It also improves the capabilities of faculty members and students. DEA as one of the methods which is used for ranking the units must be evaluated. This is done by units that have inputs and outputs such that DEA evaluated capability of them in converting input to output. In this study, we use the combined method CCR-O and PCA to evaluate the educational groups. First, by PCA, we extracted the variables that are latent in observed variable and second, by using DEA, the evaluation of the educational departments was done. There are two advantages in terms of using this method; first, latent structures of observed variables in educational departments are discovered and second, the discrepancy of the evaluation was improved.

Knowledge acquisition about the behavior patterns of the educational status of students can have a significant impact on the successful management of educational institutes and provides appropriate services in accordance with current and future status of students. This knowledge is hidden in educational data and could be extracted via using data mining method. In this paper, a data mining model to analyze students’ academic achievement based on the data related to before and after the students’ entrance to university was proposed. To tackle this problem, an advanced hierarchical clustering method was developed. In addition, a forecasting model to determine the belonging of each student to the each considered cluster was provided. The proposed model was evaluated on a case study of the Faculty of Management in Shahrood University of Technology. The obtained results were validated by experts and university administrators. The students were classified in different clusters via considering theirs specific features. The results indicated that some of the considered features related to before and after entering university have significant impacts on determining the students’ educational achievements and also their assigned cluster. Some decision rules are proposed for educational administrators to improve the overall students’ educational achievements and transferring students from clusters with poor academic situations to better ones such as applied rules for transferring students with special status. In addition, an efficient forecasting model for assessment of students' achievement states was proposed. The obtained results were verified by experts.

The aim of this study is to identify the effective factors in designing of learning environments on the basis of the Document of the Fundamental Transformation of Education. The research methodology is a qualitative method that has been tried by using resources, documentation and available literature to identify the functional, physical, psychological and social factors in the educational spaces. The obtained data were analyzed using content analysis method. According to the results, evolution in the providing the spaces for learning and equipment adaptation with technological infrastructure are crucial. There are some principles that can be used to provide an environment favorable to education and learning. It is clear that the mentioned criteria to the design suggestions, should be considered by designers and architects, in order to obedient of provided principles and regulations can solve the present difficulties of educational spaces.