JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Year:2019 | Volume:25 | Issue:3 |Papers Count:7

The purpose of this study was to conceptualize university social responsibility in Iran. The university social responsibility, like other human and social concepts, depends on its contextual characteristics. To understand the university social responsibility in the Iranian context, with its specific conditions, the Strauss-Corbin Grounded Theory was used as an approach to understand causal conditions, the focal phenomena, effective contexts, intervening variables, faculty strategies, methods, and outcomes. Participants were 50 faculty members, doctoral students, higher education experts, university administrators, higher education policy makers, and civil society activists, academic community activists in councils, and social cultural institutions who were selected through purposeful sampling. In-depth Interviews were conducted with 17 experts. In order to complete data 3 focus with 33 participants were formed. The results of data analysis were presented in a model and strategies were identified at three levels: macro (government), middle (university administration) and micro (faculty members). Finally, a definition of university social responsibility as a social institution was presented. What is certain is that such a normative expectation that can lead to sustainable development and increase the quality of life and the realization of human rights and reduction of human dignity is not possible without the full involvement of internal and external constituencies.

The purpose of this study was to design an innovative curriculum model in Iran's higher education system by using Grounded theory. The study population consisted of all experts in the field of educational planning in universities and institutes of higher education affiliated with the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. Twenty-four of them were selected by purposive sampling method and then by snowball and theoretical sampling methods. The results indicated that innovative curriculum included dimensions of ambiguity, modernity, socialism, transformationalism, complexity, perfectionism, market orientation, value orientation, need orientation, and axial communication. According to the findings, the causal factors influencing the development of innovative curriculum included instructor characteristics, management, university approach, curriculum structure, decentralization, resources and teaching methods, motivational-supportive factors, higher education structural factors, and learner characteristics. Contextual factors influencing the development of an innovative curriculum included university facilities, rules and regulations, socio-cultural factors, working conditions, and economic factors. Intervention factors that influenced the development of innovative curriculum included technology, policy, and macro-management factors. Suggested strategies for developing innovative curricula included constituencies' feedback, need assessment studies, feasibility and future research, decentralization in higher education, action research studies, providing funding and conditions, conducting courses and workshops, establishment accreditation centers, the identification and support of creative and thinker individuals, the formation of formal and informal structures and networks, developing a university ranking system based on the innovation index, and paying attention on to pivotal learning and knowledge management approach. The findings showed that the most important consequences of implementing an innovative curriculum are achieving the core vision, missions, and goals of higher education, empowering learners, developing entrepreneurship and sustainable employment, enhancing the university's relationship with the labor market and industry, improving community well-being, and achieving a comprehensive sustainable development.

The purpose of this study was to identify the components of students' self-leadership. By adopting a qualitative approach, a systematic grounded theory approach was used to analyze the views of experts. Purposeful sampling was used to interview 20 experts in the field of higher education using snowball sampling. In order to achieve the goals of the research and data collection, the interviews as research instrument was used. This was utilized by triangulation namely via semi-structured in-depth exploratory interviews, focus groups as well as literature review and background research. The data were analyzed using content analysis in GT approach in three stages of open, axial and selective coding. In the present study, the concept of student self-leadership was chosen as the central phenomenon. The findings of the study indicated that the involvement of experienced faculty members in formulating self-leadership programs, creating self-confidence and self-leadership fields through academic curricula through faculty-student interaction and designing training related to enhancing behavioral abilities including self-regulation of students in classrooms were causal factors affecting student self-leadership. Alongside causal factors, there are numerous environmental constructs in the three domains of intra-university, extracurricular and educational factors that play an important role in achieving the goal of student self-leadership. In addition, leadership style and aministration of universities, student participation and social skills are the underlying factors influencing student self-leadership. Experts believed that the need to pay attention to student self-leadership is an important task for higher education officials. Universities should be managed and led in a way that is self-directed as a culture and a part of the students' daily activities and as a benefit for all faculty and students.

The prerequisite for the success of higher education is the university autonomy associated with academic freedom. University autonomy is the heart of all academics in higher education institutions around the world. The laws and social conditions in which universities operate are very diverse and the relationship between government and higher education institutions can have different forms; therefore, there is no single model for all. For this reason, the characteristics of the university autonomy in a country cannot be considered for another country. The present research was aimed at understanding and explaining the lack of satisfactory university autonomy in Iran's higher education system in terms of sociology and based on Ruth Wodak approach to critical research discourse methodology. The documents and texts studied in this study included all texts and written and spoken literature on the conditions of university autonomy in Iran. The research findings showed that most of the problems of university autonomy in Iran are due to twelve reasons of sociological roots associated with organizational, academic, financial and staffing autonomy. In the final section, appropriate policy strategies planning and accountability of universities to gain more government and community credibility, simultaneous adjustment of state political attitudes and academic attitudes toward increasing employability, revision of the traditional view and government-oriented in higher education and more emphasis on ethics and moral values in higher education were proposed to revive university autonomy in Iran.

The models of regional governance in the world, particularly for administration of higher education are considered vital. In Iran, with the approval of Iran's Higher Education System Spatial Management Document, the issue of regional management in higher education was given special attention. Articles 1 and 2 of the document specifically address the regional higher education structure of the country. According to the document, the country's higher education system is devided into 10 regions. The purpose of the present study was to present a policy framework for the challenges of implementing regional management according to the areas envisaged in the country's higher education territorial document. In this research, based on the research strategy, a case study was conducted using quantitative methods such as exploratory factor analysis of the policy model. In the initial theoretical model presentation section, 6 interviews were conducted and 26 questionnaires were completed. Twenty interviews were conducted during the theoretical modeling scrutinization phase. A policy model for challenges of implementation of higher education regional governance structure in 13 challenges and 3 dimensions of overall challenges of regional governance environment, challenges of organizing regional governance and political structure challenges is presented.

This research examined the role of brand attachment power in the brand equity of international higher education. An applied research method as chosen for this study. A descriptive correlational-survey method was used for data collection. The statistical population of the study included all non-Iranian students whose place of residence is outside Iran's borders but have studied at one of the international universities in Iran. This study, according to the history of national studies, is one of the few studies that have examined the Iranian universities from the perspective of international students. In addition, we have tried to get a more comprehensive view of the research topic by examining a wide range of students, even those who have completed their studies and returned to their country. Due to the scattered statistical population, a convenient non-probability sampling method was used. The questionnaires were distributed online and 219 questionnaires were used for data analysis. Structural Equation Modeling was applied to test the research hypotheses. The results of the research indicated that international universities in Iran should increase the perceived quality of their services and improve the behavior of their staff, which improves the brand image, brand identity, brand concept and brand reputation that in turn enhances commitment, trust and satisfaction of students, and ultimately leads to increased brand value.