فصلنامه پژوهش و برنامه ریزی در آموزش عالی
سال بیستم شماره 4 (پیاپی 74، زمستان 1393)

Determining an appropriate level of institutional autonomy of universities is the main issue for universities and higher education in Iran. The purpose of this study was to determine the effective outstanding characteristics of institutional autonomy in public universities affiliated with Ministry of Science، Research and Technology by evaluating attitudes of certain Iranian higher education constituencies. In addition to a questionnaire for data collection، legal documents were also investigated. In this descriptive study، 35 components of university institutional autonomy which was introduced by Anderson and Johnson were used. A review of rules and regulations showed that Iran’s public universities have autonomy in 8 components. Moreover، constituencies groups demanded autonomy in 16 additional components. These 24 components are in the «substantial autonomy» and «procedural autonomy» areas. Applying these results alters the governance of public universities in Iran from «state control» model to «state supervision» model and makes them more agile in their internal and external competitive environments.

Planning in higher education in Iran has a centralized، pyramidal and vertical structure. Government''s institutions have taken a self-role charge in a maximized intervention model. However، the proper and legitimate power to lead higher education is cognitive، scientific and specialization power، rather than political and hieratical power. The aim of this article was to identify effective factors on quality and quantity of faculty participation in higher education policy making and university planning in order to provide policy recommendations. The research was conducted in three comprehensive universities in Tehran; The Universities of Tehran، Shahid Beheshti University and Tarbeiat Modarres University via 9 hypotheses testing utilizing survey method. The statistical population، according to the latest data in the academic year 2011-12، was 2929 individuals. Using multistage stratified sampling 360 individuals were selected. A construct based researcher made questionnaire with six likered scale was developed. The validity of questionnaire was determined by an expert panel and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach''s alpha (α =0. 905). According to the research hypothesis testing، there was a correlation between faculty members'' attitude about their university leadership''s styles and their self-efficacy. In addition، a significant difference by gender، rank and position was observed. In the university field there are three forces with three distinct resources and boundaries from context and outskirt around political and administrative power، academic power and population and socio-cultural power. Although outskirts of university for their intellectual power and eliteness have a high self-efficacy feelings and causal thinking، but they are sensitive to the planning، especially to the leadership style in the university.

The first section of this article contains theoretical discussion concerning the need for software changes in Iranian higher education administration system and “organizational development”، as a strategy for continual changes which could result in sustainable and desirable changes in organizations. For designing an Organizational Development Process Model، an Organizational Management Assessment Instrument” was used. The evaluation was conducted based on the opinions of top administrators of Iranian higher education system، as the statistical population. The outcome of this evaluation that include current and desired state of the system، is a model that demonstrates the process of organizational development in eight key components of Iranian higher education administration system.

The main purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting students’ intention toward employment by applying an extended version of the Ajzen''s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Two additional variables، self-identity and moral norms were added to increase the prediction power of students’ intention toward employment. The statistical population consisted of all freshmen and senior undergraduate students who registered in Khuzestan Ramin University of Agriculture and Natural Resources located in Mollasani in academic year 2013-2014 (N=770). Based on Krejcie and Morgan table، 275 individuals were selected as the statistical sample. The sample was chosen through proportional stratified sampling technique. Data were collected using a questionnaire. The questionnaire’s face and content validity was confirmed by a panel of agricultural extension and education experts and its construct validity was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis using AMOSversion20. Reliability of the questionnaire was conducted and confirmed using Cronbach`s alpha (α: 0. 77- 0. 92). The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between all predictor variables of the extended TPB (attitude، subjective norms، perceived behavioral control، self-identity and moral norms) and students’ intention toward employment. In addition، hierarchical regression analysis indicated that attitude، subjective norms، self-identity، and moral norms totally explaining 64. 3 percent of the variances in students’ intention toward employment.

Communication is one of the main mechanisms for developing science and considered important among science sociologists. Communication and interactions are essence of science growth. The interaction and communication among students and faculties are regarded also as most important university assets. In this study، the ways of social and scientific interactions and communications of Sharif University''s student was investigated. A quantitative survey research method was chosen for this study. The statistical population included all Sharif University’s students from whom 150 students were randomly selected. Research findings indicated that scientific and social interactions among students were above average، but communication between faculties and students in both scientific and social were low. Students'' scientific communication with each other in terms of gender was significantly different. Scientific communication among girls was higher than boys. But students'' social communications with each other and scientific and social communication of faculties with students in terms of gender were not significantly different. The findings of the present study also indicated a correlation between the faculties'' social and scientific communication with students in terms of students'' educational level. According to these findings the faculties had better scientific and social interactions with the students with higher educational level.

Universities and higher education centers، as the most important knowledge-based organizations، can improve their academic quality by achieving two important capabilities: knowledge sharing and knowledge absorptive capacity. The purpose of this research was to examine the multivariate determination of the relationship between knowledge sharing and knowledge absorptive capacity with academic quality improvement from faculty members points of view in selected Isfahan universities. The research method was descriptive and correlational type. The statistical population consisted of 1472 faculty members from which a sample size of 177 individuals was chosen through stratified random sampling. Based on Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP)، research instruments included Knowledge Sharing Questionnaire، Knowledge Absorptive Capacity Questionnaire and Academic Quality Improvement. The questionnaires validity was confirmed through content face and construct validity and their Cronbach alpha coefficients were estimated 0. 87، 0. 88 and 0. 95 respectively. The analysis of data was performed through descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation، and inferential statistics (Pearson Correlation Coefficient، and Structural Equation Modeling). The findings revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between knowledge sharing and knowledge absorptive capacity with academic quality improvement. Also there is a positive and significant relationship between knowledge sharing components and knowledge absorptive capacity components with academic quality improvement components. The examination of the findings through Structural Equation Modeling indicated that knowledge sharing had a significant and positive effect on knowledge absorptive capacity. Also knowledge absorptive capacity had a significant and positive effect on academic quality improvement، while knowledge sharing does not affect academic quality improvement directly.

The purpose of this study was to comparatively evaluate the process of socialization of doctoral students by hidden curricula in Iran and US higher education via phenomenological method. To achieve this goal، via snowball sampling، the experiences of thirty-six doctoral students in colleges of education in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad and Arizona State University were explored. Data was gathered via unstructured interviews. For analyzing the gathered data Apple and Kings (1977) framework was used-because the distinction between weak and strong forms of hidden curricula that presented by them provides a useful heuristic for analyzing the hidden curricula in graduate programs. The results revealed that the hidden curricula in colleges studied have made doctoral students socialized almost in a similar way.