Comparing the Past and Existing Situation with the Optimal Situation of Accreditation in Iran's Higher Education

The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the past and existing situation of accreditation in Iran's higher education system based on a native model of accreditation and its comparative analysis with the reference model as the optimal situation.

This research, in terms of purpose was applied, in terms of data collection method was descriptive, and in terms of the nature of the data was quantitative. The statistical population of the study consisted of three groups: higher education professors, experts in higher education and Ph.D candidates of higher education. Hence, using random sampling and sample size determination based on Krejcie & Morgan's (1970) table, 92 persons were selected as the statistical sample. Research measurement tools were the questionnaire of past and existing situation of accreditation in Iran's higher education system and the questionnaire of optimal situation of accreditation in Iran's higher education system. To analyze the data, the following inferential statistics techniques were used: Kolmogorov–Smirnov Test, One Sample t Test, Paired Sample t Test, Pearson's Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient, Covariance, Structural Equation Modeling, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Post-Hoc Test called Tukey’s Test.

The findings of the study showed that the past and existing situation of higher education accreditation was unfavorable and there is a difference, gap and lack of correlation with optimal situation. In addition, There was a significant difference among the viewpoints of scientific experts about the past, existing and optimal situation.

It can be concluded that there is a deep gap between the past and existing situation of higher education accreditation and optimal situation