Investigating the Viewpoints of Kurdistan University Professors on the Ranking System of Iranian Universities

Universities have a special status as centers of science, knowledge and research promotion, economic, cultural and social development. Academic ranking systems call for one university to rank with other universities based on pre-coded criteria. The purpose of this study was to investigate the viewpoints of Kurdistan University professors regarding the ranking system of Iranian universities.

This research is a qualitative research based on the method of Colaizzi’s descriptive phenomenology. The study population consisted of faculty members of Kurdistan University in the academic year 2018-2019. Using a purposive sampling method, out of 348 faculty members of Kurdistan University, 15 professors from different faculties answered the research questions through semi-structured interviews. Validity method was used to measure validity. The 397 minutes of recorded interviews were analyzed thematically after being implemented on paper.

In the most important challenges of ranking system, 5 main themes of educational quantification, research quantification, inappropriate ranking, central policy and credits, in the most important challenges solutions 3 main themes of peer comparisons, fairness and attention. The strings were obtained for ranking outcomes, 3 main themes of competitiveness, promotion of position and attraction of facilities, and finally, in the section of suggested variables for ranking improvement, 2 main themes of index weighting and thematic ranking were obtained.