Curriculum Knowledge of Faculty Members: Neglected Professional Competency in Higher Education

This paper investigates the professional components of curriculum knowledge of faculty in viewpoints of professors / academic expert in the field of basic sciences, engineering sciences, humanities and medical sciences. Consequently, the perspective of curriculum theorists about the role of faculty in the curriculum development, and the role that they have in this field are discussed in the present study. These are the phenomenon that requires serious consideration in the higher education system, but they have been neglected for various reason. Professional competencies in the field of curriculum facilitate the participation of faculty in decisions regarding curriculum in college. In this regard, qualitative method is employed and initially 24 higher education facultymembers in thefields of expertise including: Medical science, Engineering, science and humanity were selected by purposeful sampling and interviewed using standardized open-ended interview. The findings highlighted basic knowledge (nature and different aspects of curriculum elements, structural relations among elements, principles of balance and coherence among curriculum elements) and knowledge/curriculum principles (domain of expertise - scientific and related domains, epistemological domain, psychological domain, cultural-social identity, lingual and aesthetical domain).