The perception of faculty members on being professional in Iran's higher education system

The purpose of this research was to investigate the perception of faculty members on being professional in Iran's higher education system. A qualitative research was chosen for this study. Participants were faculty members from different departments in University of Mashhad who were selected purposefully. Sampling was determined through theoretical saturation and interviews with 17 individuals. Following the principles of ethical interviewing, data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews. For analysis of the themes and concepts, a combination of micro-analysis was used, which combines open coding and axial coding. The findings showed in an innovative way, the perception of faculty members on being professional. From this perspective, a faculty member had six educational commitments including teaching, research, communication, professional ethics, personality and organizational as well as 14 duties. In educational commitment, duties were "special merit", "technological capabilities", "regulation of the training", "research commitment" and "promoting professional confidence in the production of pure science". In relationship commitment," exposure" and "development of multifaceted relations, the moral obligation, "citizenship of academic value as describing the behavior of health"; in personality commitment, "the dominant learning needs", and in organizational commitment, "institutional understanding" were the most indicators of faculty member's professionalism.