Lived experiences of university faculty members from the education and research nexus

Problem and goal: Education and research are the two main functions of universities and the usefulness of research for education is considered a universal assumption. However, the place of these two functions in higher education policy and practice is unclear. Therefore, the main goal of this research is to analyze the lived experiences of faculty members of the Department of Humanities (A) from the link between education and research in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Methodology: To achieve this goal, qualitative research approach and descriptive phenomenological method were used. All faculty members of the Department of Humanities (A) who excelled in education and research at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad formed the studied population, which consisted of 48 people. Among them, 20 people were selected as key informants by purposive sampling method. A semi-structured interview was used to collect the required data. The resulting data were analyzed using the open and axial coding method. Findings: Based on the findings of this research, fourteen main categories were identified and extracted with the aim of understanding the nature of education and the nature of research, seven main categories centered around the relationship between education and research, and fourteen main categories as factors promoting and inhibiting the relationship between education and research. Conclusion: According to the lived experiences of the studied faculty members, there is a relationship between education and research in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, and the direction of this relationship can be observed in both positive and negative ways. It seems that the relationship between research and education is relative according to the level of education and the nature of the field of study. As this relationship is the strongest at the doctoral level and the weakest at the undergraduate level.