Ranking Hidden Curriculum Components: the Viewpoint of Students Studying at Faculty of Education and Psychology of Shahid Beheshti University

The present study aims to rank the components of hidden curriculum (including teaching methods, evaluation methods, teacher-student interaction in the space of physical and social atmosphere of the university, the scientific spirit of the students, the course and the rules and regulations) in terms of their importance in the formation of academic identity. For this purpose, the viewpoint of students studying at the faculty of education and psychology in Shahid Beheshti University in 2015-2016 educational years are gathered and analyzed. This is a survey research and the statistical population include all the male and female students of educational science (n=95). From this population 76 students are selected through Morgan table and simple random sampling as the research sample. The data are collected through a researcher-made questionnaire that includes 32 items on a five-level Likert scale. The face and content validity are confirmed by experts and reliability coefficient of 84% is calculated through Cronbach's alpha. The obtained data is analyzed through descriptive statistics (frequency counts, mean, and percentage) and inferential statistics (Spearman correlation coefficient, simple linear regression, Mann-Whitney test, Friedman test). The results indicate that, according to the participants, there is a significant relationship between hidden curriculum components and academic identity formation. In addition, most of the participants rank social atmosphere of university higher than the other components in terms of influencing scientific identity and component of scientific spirit was ranked lower than other components. The results show no significant difference between the two genders regarding mean difference of the components.