The Responsibility of the Academic System to the Community: Designing a Model to Assess Its Current and Desirable Status

The purpose of this study was to design a model for assessing the social responsibility of the academic system.The research method was mixed exploration method. In qualitative part, 10 academic experts were selected for confirmation of qualitative research findings and in quantitative part, 259 faculty members were selected by stratified random sampling. In the first step, by reviewing the literature and documents, the components of the model were identified, and in the second step, the data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. The construct and convergence validity of questionnaire were evaluated by confirmatory factor analysis and its reliability with Cronbachchr(chr('39')39chr('39'))s alpha and composite reliability. Qualitative content analysis technique was used to analyze the data in qualitative section and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was used in quantitative section. Findings led to the identification of 50 indicators and 7 components about the phenomenon of social responsibility in the Academic system and 37 indicators and 5 factors about its driving factors in the form of a well-fitting model. The evaluation showed that there is a large gap between the current situation and the desired situation, which requires serious efforts by the authorities concerned to achieve the desired situation.