Investigating the causes of the academic geography gap and society's needs with the grounded theory model

 Introduction:

 Entrepreneurial universities emerged in the second half of the 20th century as the third generation with the aim of training entrepreneurial human resources and connecting with industry, and providing opportunities for student employment is one of the important missions of universities. According to some criticisms which are university graduates, including geography, who are not aware of the necessary efficiency in real employment conditions, and geographical researches are not in line with the real needs of the society, so the feeling of gap expressed in this case became the basis for the aim of this research to investigate the causes of the gap academic geography and community needs. In this regard, by using the grounded theory model, and relying on the triple helix model, it was tried to determine the existing gaps and why there is a gap between the knowledge of geography in universities and the needs of the society.

Research Methodology :

The approach of this research is of inductive qualitative type, based on grounded theory model. Grounded theory is a theory that is directly extracted from the data that has been regularly collected and analyzed during the research. The statistical population included professors, students, and graduates of geography. The data collection method is in the form of interviews and includes 30 interviews with geography professors and graduates in Mashhad. The criteria of sampling and theoretical saturation and the selection of samples have been continued until the contents of the interviews of the listeners were repeated and the additional data did not help to complete and define a theoretical category and the interviews seemed similar. The interview focused on these questions: Is there a gap between academic geography and the needs of society? If yes, what are the gaps or challenges and what are the reasons? After the end of the interview process, based on the considered method, the data in three stages and separately It was coded by the authors of the article and verified in terms of accuracy in the selection of concepts and categories. In the initial coding, 94 concepts were identified, which were summarized to 32 concepts in the open coding stage after removing commonalities and aggregating them. Open coding is an analytical process with which concepts are identified and their characteristics and dimensions are discovered in the data. These 32 concepts were reduced to 10 categories in axial coding, which is the process of relating categories to subcategories, and finally became a central category, and the story line was formed by analyzing the categories based on the central category in selective coding. 

Results and Discussion:

 The results showed that among the 94 concepts identified in the interviews, in different stages of coding, it was reduced to 32 categories and finally to 10 main categories. In between, the central category or core was identified as the commodification of knowledge, both education and research. A category that has the appropriate interpretation power to include the five mentioned conditions, and the causes of the gap in academic geography and the needs of society. Commodity knowledge means knowledge that serves private interests, and these private interests may serve the government. When education becomes a commodity, like other commodities, need is no longer important and it is the demand that becomes important, and when higher education becomes a commodity, the only guide for the behavior of supply and producers of higher education is the measure of economic profit. The commodification of knowledge and universities, along with other processes that increase the demand for education and qualifications in society, strengthens quantification. In a situation where the applicants of the universities to obtain a degree, and besides that, the regulations of the universities regarding the promotion of the professors tend towards quantification and increasing the number of articles, as a result, in various fields, including geography, the quality of education and research that are two wings of Universities are reduced. In particular, in the system of centralism, where the laws are not amended according to the current conditions, and there is no sustainable policy in the direction of the universities to solve the real problems of the society, on the other hand, the unfavorable economic conditions and the lack of priority of science and research cause there are infrastructural weaknesses in universities and organizations. This also leads to a decrease in the relationship between the university and society. 

Conclusion:

 According to the findings of the article, and according to the three main sides of the triple helix model, the role of the government can be seen more in interventionist and causal conditions, society shows itself more in interventionist conditions, and the background conditions inside the university lead to the adoption of strategies It can have certain consequences. The effect of generalization of science in general, and the commodification of geography in particular, which is caught in a cycle of the mentioned causal factors, and on the other hand, intervening and grounding factors such as the inappropriate position of geography in the employment structure of the country, lack of trust and belief in research in the executive and operational field, the lack of up-to-date topics, the weakness of teaching the skills and skills of geography students, causes the quality of the education flow on the one hand, and the lack of a job market for the field of geography, and the preference of government and nongovernment sectors for fields It is connected with geography.