The Analysis of Curriculum Development in Iran’s Higher Education

The main step in preparing a comprehensive strategic document for the development of an effective curriculum is to recognize the curriculum in Iranian higher education from all its angles for the success of universities, according to the delegated authority regarding the development of curricula. The present study was conducted with the aim of explore the development of curriculum in Iranchr('39')s higher education by means of the grounded theory and the focus group approach. For this purpose, in-depth semi-structured individual interviews with 31 experts were used by purposive sampling with a chain approach. In the focus group panel, in-depth semi-structured group interviews were conducted with 14(N=58) individuals. Based on the paradigm model, the most important causal factors included the development and growth of universities, poor performance in the developing structure, universities and planning committees, weak developing and revision process, and regulations. According to the contextual conditions, the current situation proved the poor performance of universities, lack of sufficient motivation in students, faculty-centered curricula and lack of appropriate and practical framework for development. Interfering factors such as the type of economy that governs society, the situation of its graduates and the labor market, have played an effective role in this delegation. Finally, under the influence of these conditions and factors, effective strategies that will lead to positive consequences at the micro and macro levels of higher education were suggested by experts.