JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION CURRICULUM
Year:2019 | Volume:10 | Issue:19 |Papers Count:7

In today’ s market, the lack of necessary skills to operate efficiently could be mentioned as one of the significant issues. In the past, it was reported that higher levels of education correlates with lower unemployment rates leading to higher incomes for people with higher educations. However, this has changed over time, and recent statistics reaveled that the unemployment rate of university graduates is higher than the general unemployment rate in the society. This highlighted the significance of skills essential for operating in the market. Hence, this study seeks to present a model for skills that could raise the chance of employment referring to the literature review. This model was defined based on three groups of hard, soft and cognitive skills. The data were collected through interviews with some of recruiting officials and entrepreneurs. The findings indicated that after 15 interviews, the information and views obtained from the elites had reached saturation levels. Subsequently, the Delphi method questionnaire was extracted, and by referring to these companies, the views of the elites were obtained for the second time. This process was carried out four times, until a consensus was obtained about the skills necessary for the university graduates to enter the labor market. Finally, 17 main skills were mentioned by market participants as the essential skills for graduates to enter and work in the job market. The analysis in this study was conducted through fuzzy technique.

The purpose of this study is to design a model for reforming the structure of the interdisciplinary approach in the field of basic science at the university level, emphasizing the sustainability of national development. The research method was derived from grounded Theory for explaining and analyzing findings from exploratory interviews. The study population was the professors of basic sciences and professors who were well-known in this field. The sampling method was a combination of purposeful sampling and snowball. The research tool included an open source interview. In the data analysis phase, the content analysis and counts of the themes were employed in open, axial and selective coding stages. Referring to the literature and exploration, reform of the structure of science education as a pivotal phenomenon, evolution of the role of universities, fundamental goals, formulation of programs, respectively as caustic condition, underlying conditions, conditions of intervention and policy in the processes and structure and management requirements were identified as a strategy. The findings indicated that the outcome of reform of the structure is achieving a convergence of science and technology. Therefore, the adoption of special policies with emphasis on national development in universities and related institutions and special attention to interdisciplinary research, along with its requirements could facilitate reforming the structure.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of social skills training on self-efficacy of students in Farhangian Univerity. The research method was semi-experimental including a pretest-posttest design with control group. The statistical population consisted of 210 B. S students in Educational Sciences at Farhangian University, (Shahid Beheshti Campus of Zanjan). Finally, 60 students were selected by convenience sampling and they were randomly assigned into experimental or control groups. Both groups completed the General Self-Efficacy Subscale (Sherer et al., 1982) before and after social skills training, and one month after the study. The obtained data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The results indicated that social skills training had positive effects on self-efficacy of students in the posttest and these effects were persisted in follow-up.

The purpose of this study is to explain the views of the experts on the elements of arts curriculum at teacher training (Higher Education) level in order to design a model of a competency-based curriculum for arts. Therefore, 15 experts in arts curriculum and arts education were selected through exploratory qualitative approach and Grounded Theory method based on anowball sampling. These samples were subjected to semi-structured interviews with content saturation. The content validity of the interview questions was confirmed by experts. The initial data were analyzed with MAXQDA software version 2011 through three open, axial and selective coding steps. The findings of the research as well as the implications of ten elements of Akker curriculum model were explained by the analysis of the interviews as the basis of the conceptual model of the curriculum. The curriculum proposed in this research relies on teaching the principle of integration and composition, pluralism and the field of revelation to the teachers. The logic of this pattern includes (artistic revelation, learning in action, specialist credentials, communication, participation and active role of the teacher) and the nine elements of the curriculum has been designed proportional to the results of the conducted interviews The presented pattern could be used as a basis for designing an arts curriculum for teacher training at the higher education level as well as teacher training centers and institutions.

This study seeks to develp and validate the constructivist curriculum scale in higher education. This study is considered as an exploratory mixed method research inlcduing qualitative (case study) and quantitative (descriptive-survey) phases. The reseaech population included curriculum scholars in the field of constructivism and data collection method, was semi-structured interview. By purposeful sampling approach and criterion method, eight informants were selected as the samples to be interviewd. Using thematic analysis 40 basic themes, 4 organizing themes, and a total theme for constructivist curriculum was explored. For the quantitative phase, the statistical population was curriculum experts in constructivism area that 30 experts were selected by purposeful sampling. The research instrument was the constructivist curriculum scale including 4 subscales and 40 items based on Likert scale. The result of the confirmatory factor analysis revealed factor loads of 0. 67 for goal, 0. 65 for content, 0. 86 for teaching-learning strategies, and 0. 65% for evaluation and the construct validity was confirmed. In addition, based on Cronbach's alpha coefficients of components were, 0. 78, 0. 74, 0. 81, and 0. 71. And the reliability was confirmed.

The internship curriculum of the Farhangian University has been implemented since 2014. The program employs more than 12% of the training time and seeks to provide the opportunity to experience the application of theoretical knowledge in practical situations. The question is: “ what experience has the student covered under this two-year program? ” In this article, we seek to review the experience of the students, the first turn of the program, through an interview with 11 students, and a picture of the effects of the internship program. The experience of this group shows that the new program of internship has been "effective" and has been able to satisfy the students’ expecttaions, increase their competence and help shape and improve their teacher's identity. However, the implementation of the internship program is faced with a number of problems, including the lack of training of the brokers which could be purposefully improved.

Pedagogy is one of the most focused research areas in curriculums studies and education. This developing research area is an essential topic in the higher education curriculum. This research is designed to explore the pedagogical dimensions in higher education curriculum. The data were collected based on a quantitative research design and through an exploratory synthesis technique. The research process consists of five consecutive stages. In the first 2 stages, the references of the research were selected. In the next 2 stages, the data was analyzed using analytic induction which derived 37 components. In the last stage, the components were synthesized in order to achieve a conceptual framework, and 7 key components were drawn: perspectives, agents, theorization, belief system, domains, principles-procedures, and professional competencies. Based on these key components, the conceptual model of pedagogy was developed.