Identification and analysis of critical success factors in higher education using fuzzy cognitive maps

In current dynamic environment، educational organizations have to screen their environment actively and dynamically، and detect their goals achieving parameters in it. The purpose of this research was to recognize، analyze and categorize the effective factors on success of educational field of engineering faculties by FCM method. After analyzing the field literature and recognizing the effective factors of educational success in engineering faculties، 36 persons who were selected by judiciary purposeful sampling method among managers and teachers، recognized and selected the final effective factors. Content validity and reliability (Cronbach’s alpha methods) of the questionnaire were confirmed. After categorizing the final factors in 7 parts، the causal relation of the factors and their effect level was determined by 12 experts. FCMapper 1 and Pajek 64 softwares were used to draw FCM. According to centrality characteristics (sum of effectiveness and affectedness)، ”university students empowerment “، “university reliability“،” faculty incoming budget “، “cooperation of education and social needs“،” absorbing and remaining of better teachers “، “teachers’ scientific power and update“،” proper and achievable laboratories and workshops “، “amount of educational fields“and “ten-year goal” were the most central concepts. FCM is an effective and advantageous instrument for analyzing the effective factors of concepts and goals and can change the fuzzy linguistic parameters to some weights and use them for modeling.