Designing and Explaining Process Model of Scientific Authority in Iran's Higher Education Mixed approach

This study aimed to design and explain the process model of scientific authority in Iran’s higher education. Mixed-Method has been the methodology used in this research in two phases: the first, qualitative using Grounded Theory, and the second, quantitative (descriptive, survey). Research orientation has been basic, descriptive and functional; the research approach has been deductive in the first phase and inductive in the second one. The population, in the first phase, was 15 persons possessing the authority’s conditions in Iran’s scientific past released from purposive sampling method; the population, in the second phase, was the higher education’s professors and experts including all members of the active scientific committees in Ministry Of Science, Research and Technology. These members were 176 persons who were studied through stratified random sampling. In the first phase, the research’s reliability has been observed by the researcher, and in the second one, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated. Qualitative findings including four stages were identified as nascent stage with five dimensions, development stage with six dimensions, interaction stage with four dimensions and evolution stage with five dimensions. Finally, the process and dimension stages were tested by LIZREL software. It was found that the most impact related to education and research area and experiencing scientific environment, and the least related to the political factors.