Identifying the Futurism Dimensions in Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences

The overall objective of the present study was to investigate the role of scientific authority and futurism in the development of fourth-generation universities in order to present a model in Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Methods and Materials: The applied study adopted a descriptive and survey-based approach to conduct the study. The population consisted of 465 managers and faculty members of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Based on the Cochran formula, 210 individuals were selected by stratified random sampling. For data collection, a questionnaire including 60 questions on scientific authority, 56 for futurism, and 40 questions for fourth-generation university development was used. The face and content validity of the instruments was confirmed by experts and their reliability was calculated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient leading to 0.88 for scientific reference, 0.95 for futurism, and 0.91 for fourth-generation university development. The structural equation test was used for data analysis.

The results showed that futurism with standard coefficient of (0.686) had the highest impact on the fourth-generation university development.

The results of this study showed that the role of scientific authority and futurism in the development of fourth-generation universities at Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences was positive and significant. Also, the proposed model has the appropriate goodness of fit.