مجله آموزش عالی ایران
سال دوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 5، تابستان 1388)

As a descriptive, this paper aims to analyze factors affecting success of faculty members of Iranian agricultural colleges in outreach services delivery. Using proportional stratified random sampling technique, 140 lecturers out of 1799 were selected from ten Iranian agricultural colleges. As a descriptive-correlation research, lecturers were asked to fill in a questionnaire which was validated by a panel of faculty members of the Department of Agricultural Extension and Education in University of Tehran. Its reliability also was examined by Cronbach Alpha coefficients and estimated 0.79 and 0.82. Results of ranking of factors affecting success of faculty members, showed that top two most important factors (in order of importance) were "existence of appropriate occupational and professional competences" and "having required research skills to identify target group, target regions, and networks". Also results of exploratory factor analysis revealed that three factors determined about 60.2 percent of variations in the factor affecting success of faculty members in outreach services delivery: occupational, communication- psychology and organizational- managerial factors. Due to being non favorable situation with regard to university outreach services in Iranian agricultural higher education system, identifying these factors and paying critical attention to them can resolve many problems of this system and reinforce mutual linkage between university and various sectors of the community.

Higher education is a special kind of investment in human resources that accelerates economic, social and cultural development of society by improving knowledge, skills and new theories. Hence, the evaluation of efficiency and productivity growth in trustee units of this sector is one of the important issues which nowadays have been specifically concentrated in economic and social studies. Based on the Fourth Development Plan of the I.R of Iran, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) should reach 2/5 % per Year. Thus, according to the plan, all organizations, institutions and enterprises should recognize the factors affecting their total factor productivity growth. This paper, therefore, using a combined model of DEA and tornqvist productivity index investigates Total Factor Productivity Growth (TFPG) in Public Higher Education sector of the country. It additionally studies the impacts of efficiency and technological changes on this growth. The results show that Total Factor Productivity changes in Public Higher Education sector has been highly resulted by technological changes, while efficiency changes have a little impact in the decreasing changes of TFP.

In National University’s examination applicants must access some valid information sources by which they must be guided properly in this critical stage. This paper therefore, aims to review and assess the applicants’ information needs in Tehran. 352 individuals of those who were qualified for university in Tehran in 2006 were randomly selected as the samples. In order to collect required data a questionnaire was used. Both validity and reliability of the research instrument were examined. Based on measurement scale, data were analyzed using different statistics models including factor analysis. Findings revealed that the information needs of applicants include using instructional software, information about disciplines, universities and the criteria of academic admission and selection, information about and accesses to additional and relevant exam’s sources, guidelines for filling in required forms and its deadlines, planning methods for studying and technical points about field selection, and so on. The results also suggested that although there was not a significant difference between the information needs of applicants in terms of their major field of study and type of their diploma, but their needs according to their gander were different.

This paper aims to study the differences and relationship between knowledge and cognition at the higher education level. It also tries to observe the impacts of knowledge and cognition on people’s daily lives in the society. Knowledge is a set of information about a specific topic, while cognition or insight refers to believing in acquired knowledge and using it in daily life by a person. Therefore, in order to turn knowledge into cognition, individuals must be able to process information and knowledge. In other words, both Conceptual Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence are playing an important role in determining of the form and direction of individual’s life. As a qualitative method, the research hypothesizes were examined by interviewing a random sample of families in Tehran. The findings have shown that highly knowledgeable individuals have not necessarily a deep cognition in their daily lives and vice versa. Therefore, there are some individuals who have not been educated at the higher education level but their deep insight indicates how wise and experienced they are.

In recent decades a noticeable attention has been given to the human capital empowerment in academic environments by a large number of scholars, researchers and those who are in charge for higher education institutions. This paper therefore, aims to study the extent to which staffs’ empowerment is focused in universities and to highlight associated factors with this phenomenon. Using stratified random sampling technique, 175 lecturers out from Teacher Training University were selected. Data were analyzed by a number statistics tests including factor analysis, correlation and multiple regression. Findings showed that the university’ staffs are more empowered in the job meaningfulness than other dimensions such as self-efficacy, self-autonomous, and so on. It also revealed that variables such as modeling and performance-based reward are not linked to the empowerment process, but it is associated with job’s enrichment and participatory management. Among relevant variables, participatory management and job enrichment are more predictor factors for staffs’ empowerment.

This paper aims to compare the students’ writing skills and other relevant capabilities such as dictation, grammar and the quality of written material by students in two different settings of regular and distance education. As the research sample, among the ten common fields of study, 400 undergraduate students from Payame Noor University and Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman were randomly selected. Using a set of achievement tests, data were collected and analyzed by independent t-test and multidimensional regression. The findings have indicated that the scores of students in two universities for dictation, grammar and the relevance of writing to the given tops were significantly different. In other words, students from Shahid Bahonar University had better performance in compare with students Payame Noor University. Additionally, regression analysis shows that variables such as gander, university and field of study have a positive impact on the writing skills respectively.

The concept of learning organization and organization learning has received too much attention from researchers and managers of many organizations especially educational systems and building the learning organization has become one of the strategic aims for the system of education. From this view of point the country׳s universities movement toward learning organization is specifically important. This research therefore, was carried out to determine the application of «learning organization» indices: personal master, mental models, shared vision, team learning and system thinking in Shahrekord University (Sh. U) and Islamic Azad University of Shahrekord (A. U). The method of research was descriptive-surveying and the sample included 200 persons of the managers, academic staffs and personnel of the two universities which were selected randomly. In order to collect data a questionnaire composed of 40 closed questions was used. Using Cronbach׳s Alpha index, the questionnaire’s reliability was estimated 0. 85. The data were analyzed by one-sample t-test, Analysis of Variance, Scheffe and Hotelling T-squared. The results showed that the application of «personal master» was above average level in A. U and was at average level in the Sh. U. and the application of «Mental models» was below average level in both universities. The application of «Shared vision», «team learning» and «system thinking» were above level in the A. U and below average level in the Sh. U. Demographic specification analysis also showed that there was no meaningful difference among samples in terms of their gender in both universities, but in the Sh. U the application of «mental models» among the academic staffs and the application of «personal master» among managers and academic staffs were more than personnel.