The Effective Factors in Political Participation of Political and Engineering Students of Tehran University

This paper seeks to study the factors which are effective in the political participation of the University of Tehran’s students of politics and engineering. The research is an applied one and its method is descriptive and analytical. The data were collected by distribution of questionnaires. The research population was 3920 students at the University of Tehran. Based on Cochran formula, the sample size was 352 of the students. Firstly, according to the branch of the study, the stratified sampling was done and then according to the population of each group random sampling was conducted. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire designed by the researcher. The questionnaire comprised 40 items of close-ended and open-ended questions based on Likert spectrum. The data were processed and analyzed by SPSS. According to the study it was signified that the students of politics were more influenced by their course of study. The students of engineering, however, were more influenced by the political environment of their faculty. The relation between the city of the faculty and the political participation was not a meaningful one. The students’ motivation for political participation was different in the two groups. So, in the group of the students of politics, the major motivations were friends and family at first. Also, the political motivation made a major contribution to the political participation. In the group of students of engineering, however, friends and political environment were more influential than other motivations.