نشریه مطالعات برنامه درسی آموزش عالی
پیاپی 16 (پاییز و زمستان 1396)

Transdisciplinary approach, recently, receives significant attention in various fields of study and particularly in curriculum. It is an integral and holistic approach which offers curriculum specialists with an occasion to overcome the disciplinary limits and to celebrate and respect the complexity in human life as demonstrated by the contemporary society. However, this involves bringing the curriculum with challenges such as philosophical considerations, pedagogical issues and responsibilities affecting the teaching process, students, and the design of the courses. In this paper, with regard to diverse approaches to the transdisciplinary we answer the challenges and so, epistemological assumptions, the conceptual framework, and the model for curriculum development inspired by the causal layered analysis, based on Bhaskar's theory of critical realism, has been explained. Finally, it has been pointed out that a curriculum approach involves a range of institutional adjustments and adaptations that are not easily adaptable and structurally within the framework of current pedagogy. Therefore, in this paper, based on the philosophical, epistemological and educational foundations, a new conceptualization of the transdisciplinary curriculumand its pedagogical implications has been presented.

Creating a culture of participation in developing university curriculum is a major concern for professionals in the Iran higher education. Encouraging the culture of curriculum development improves the efficiency and effectiveness of higher education. The present study aims to explain the strategies for promoting the curriculum culture in universities and higher education institutions. This study is conducted through depth interviews with 29 experts in the field of higher education, and the results are analyzed by qualitative data methods. The findings show that the most important strategies for promoting the culture of curriculum development include: education and awareness, getting involved individuals in curriculum development, establishing counseling centers for curriculum development in universities, observing and adhering to the basic principles of effective curriculum development, increasing participation, devoting more budget and sufficient resources to higher education. The results of this research can be used as guidelines for higher education planners for reviewing and improving the curriculum structure, identifying strengths and weaknesses of curriculum development culture in the higher education system and planning attempts.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the goal and content of future curricula of Iranian higher education based on the visions and missions defined for the country’s higher education in the horizon of 2025. The present study is conducted through a combined exploratory method and the statistical population includes upstream resources, experts in the field of higher education, as well as faculty members and PhD students of Isfahan University in the academic year of 2015-2016. In the qualitative stage, the purposeful sampling method and in the quantitative phase, appropriate stratified sampling method is employed. The data are collected through qualitative content analysis of upstream resources, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The findings from the analysis of the qualitative content of upstream resources showed that directions that have provided upstream resources to science and technology as a vision and mission have been comprehensive and with consideration of national development, and can also be reviewed and analyzed in three categories: education, research and service. The results of the interviews also revealed that focusing on the society should be the most important issue in the development of the goal and content of the curriculum of higher education. The results of interviews regarding the prioritization of curriculum goals and contents indicated that "citizenship rights education" and "attending to the cultural needs" are identified the priorities for goals and contents, respectively. Finally, it can be concluded that future curricula of Iranian higher education would be probably more society-oriented.

This study seeks to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and skills of professors, and directors and available facilities at Farhangian University for implementing the spiritual curriculum. To this aim, four variables including knowledge, attitudes, skills and facilities are evaluated in two groups of professors and directors. This study is a combination of qualitative and quantitative study. In the qualitative phase, the corpus includes sources and textbooks available for spiritual curriculum among which 20 internal and 10 external sources are identified and analyzed. In the quantitative phase, the population includes all senior students of Educational Sciences (primary education) at Farhangian University in the academic year of 2016-2017. The sample includes 300 students who are selected randomly. In this phase, the researcher-made questionnaires are used as the data collection instrument. Content analysis is used for analyzing the obtained data in qualitative phase. The means indicators and standard deviation are used in quantitative phase in order to describe and one-sample t-test, Friedman and chi-square were used for inferential analysis. The results indicate that the highest average is related to level of knowledge and attitudes, while skill and facilities show the lowest average. This means that university directors and professors who are responsible for implementing the spiritual curriculum have the necessary knowledge and attitudes; however, not sufficient skills. In addition, the facilities of Farhangian University for implementing the spiritual curriculum are not at the desirable level.

Higher education has faced many challenges due to the factors such as reducing the quality of education and disproportionate needs of students and society. In response to these challenges, higher education should improve the quality of learning opportunities in the future curriculum direction. Therefore, it can be claimed that the content of the curriculum is one of the most important variables that can affect the ability of students to study future studies. The purpose of this study is to design curriculum content based on the development of futures studies in higher education. With a qualitative research methodology and using a strategy based on the Benny data theory (D) is performed. In this regard, semi-structured interviews with 14 faculty members in the field of curriculum and futures studies in universities of Fars province are carried out using purposeful approach and application of theoretical saturation criterion. To obtain the reliability and validity of the data from two participants review method and review of non-participating experts in the research are used. The results of the data analysis are separated into separate concepts through three stages, open source coding, theoretical coding and selective coding with the help of the MAXQDA software. As the result, 19 general categories are obtained. This article presents the findings of the study in the framework of the paradigmatic model including: causal conditions (3 categories), pivotal phenomenon (review of curriculum content with emphasis on futures studies), strategies (6 categories), field (3 categories), interventional conditions (2 categories) and consequences (4 categories).

The present study seeks to design an engineering education curriculum according to the experience of technologists and with an emphasis on technology education. This study is conducted based on the classic grounded theory. The sample included 10 technologists selected through criterion type purposive sampling. The data were colleted through semi-structured interviews. In addition to the intevirews, note taking was also used as the data collection instrument. Collecting the data from the relevant documents was conducted through two phases. In the first phase, the items and signs were selected which would help the researcher achieve the main goal and answer the questions. In the second phase, the literature was studied regarding technological literacy after the emergence of the major concern. The collected data were analyzed with the Glaserian substantive and theoretical coding method and were extracted with MAXQDAQualitative data analysis software. The findings of this part were related to theoretical coding and presenting links among categories and concepts pertaining to the axial phenomenon. The links category was selected from the Glaserian theoretical coding families and, finally, it resulted in drawing the theoretical model of pendulum technological curriculum for engineering education. The results of this study revealed four main themes in engineering education curriculum based on technology education including pendulum correlations, technological personal environment, technological social environment, technological industrial environment, technological educational environment. According to research findings, technology education has structural and cultural functions that are focused on economic growth, which should be highly regarded by the responsible authorities

Abstract: Identifying the effective factors in the success of top people, and trying to take advantage of them, is one of the most important strategies for success. The lack of an in-depth study in representing the success factors of top students at the university entrance exam motivated the researchers to conduct the present study. The data were collected through a qualitative approach and a deep semi-structured interview with the elective students of university entrance exam, which were selected by the extreme case sampling. After 12 interviews, theoretical saturation was analyzed and data analysis was performed based on a seven-stage Collizzi. The deep analysis of the participant's experience of life has resulted in the classification of seven main themes (main success factors). The results were presented to the participating professors and confirmed after successive studies. The findings indicated that the identified seven factors played a major role in achieving top rank in the university entrance exam. These factors include self-motivation, ambition, purposefulness, speed, learning strategies, learning environment and family features.