Curriculum Content Based on Future Studies Development in Iran's Higher Education: a Qualitative Research

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).