A Content Analysis of Scientific-research Articles in the Field of the Quality of Rural Life in Iran (from 2010 to 2018)

Quality of life findings can be used to identify past strategy policies and design future policies. As such, the issue of quality of urban and rural life in recent decades has become one of the most important issues in Iran, so  numerous seminars, conferences, and articles have been held and written to examine the quality of life. In recent years, experts have tried to look at this issue in Iran from a scientific point of view. The present study was conducted with the aim of analyzing the scientific research articles written on the quality of rural life in Iran during the years 2011 to 2019. The results of the study show that in terms of the gender status of the authors during the 9 years studied, out of 271 authors, 210 (77%) of them were men while 61 of them were women. Regarding the expertise of the authors, which was divided into 9 categories, the most specialized field was rural planning with 61.62% and urban planning with 9.23% while other fields had a small share. The organizational affiliation of  authors was classified into six groups including State Universities, the Islamic Azad University, Payame Noor University,  non-profit organizations, government institutions, and other institutions. Government institutions with a frequency of 233 (85.98%) had the highest level of organizational dependence suggesting a significant gap between the state universities and other institutions. Also, the number of authors and their articles showed that the highest number of authors (79.29%) have been co-outhors of one  article. In other words, about three-quarters of the authors were present in only one article, which indicated the relatively low diversity of names in the published articles. To determine thematic trends and prevent dispersion, the topics presented in 20 categories were classified as follows. One of the most important topics for writers in the field of rural studies was the evaluation of the quality of life and its indicators with the frequency of 31 (32.63%) with the highest frequency among other topics. Other topics of interest to authors included dimensions, components, and levels of quality of life and the effects of the master plan on quality of life (5.26%); social dimensions of quality of life (7.37%), the spatial distribution of quality of life, the role of credits and targeted subsidies on quality of life, employment, income, and quality of life and tourism and quality of life (6.32%); factors affecting the quality of life and quality of life and housing (4.21%); satisfaction with the quality of life and the role of small towns and industrial towns on quality of life 3.16%; and agriculture and the quality of life (2.11%). Other thematic trends (1.05%), recived the least attention. Also, in the field of distribution of provinces studied by the authors, Kermanshah and Khorasan Razavi provinces with 10 articles were in the first rank,Fars province with 9 articles in the second rank, and Zanjan province with 8 articles in the third rank. Golestan, Sistan and Baluchestan, and Kurdistan were in the fourth rank with 7 articles, and Lorestan and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad provinces were in the fifth place with 5 articles and other provinces were in the next positions. The results suggest that the discussion of rural studies, which has been less discussed so far, is important and should be given more attention to provide other researchers with such studies to provide a context for the development of villages. Keywords: Quality of Life, Quality of Rural Life, Scientific Research Article, Content Analysis.