The study of citizenship domains in higher education system form the viewpoints of university faculty members & students (case study: university of Mazandran)

This paper attempts to investigate university student's citizenship knowledge, attitude and skill. It also intends to study the quality of citizenship education in higher education. This study was conducted through quantitative (descriptive) and qualitative method. The required data were gathered from both students through a questionnaire and professors through semi-structured interviews. 359 students were selected by using Cochran formula and stratified sampling based on the students, entrance year, sex, and faculty. The sample of professors consisted of 14 persons. They were selected through chain sampling. The Questionnaire data were analyzed by using descriptive and referential statistics, and inductive analysis was used to analyze the interviews data. Findings show that the mean of student's citizenship knowledge is lower than average and the mean of citizenship attitude and skill is higher than average. Also the result of T-test for comparing the mean of citizenship knowledge, attitude and skill in students who entered university in 1385 with that of students entering in 1382 indicated that except for the subareas of pluralism and patriotism there was no significant difference among the two groups of students in other components. On the other hand, the professor's ideas illustrate that the higher education has not been successful enough in promoting citizenship domains. It seems that higher education has mostly been inclined toward theoretical knowledge and memorization and fostering citizenship skills has not been its pivotal concern. Except of law and political subjects (due to their special nature), higher education does not put emphasis on citizenship knowledge.