Identifying the Components of Professional Ethics Development in the Iranian Higher Education System with a Meta-Synthesis Approach

 Considering that the sensitivity of ethical issues is not the same in all professions and since educational environments and universities are responsible for the serious task of educating and training specialized and faithful human resources in order to respond to the needs of the society and contribute to the comprehensive development of the country, the aim of this study was to identify the components of professional ethics development in the Iranian higher education system with a meta-synthesis approach.

 This research has been done in terms of applied purpose and with a hyper-combined qualitative method. The statistical population is all studies conducted in the period of 2001-20. In this regard, 63 researches in the field of the subject were evaluated and finally 34 articles were purposefully selected and by analyzing the content and composition of the relevant literature, a total of 164 codes, 13 concepts, 4 key categories during the search process and systematic combination of texts were identified and analyzed and its validity was confirmed by Cohen Kappa test.

Ethical Considerations:

 The requirements of research ethics have been considered in the monitoring of synthesized articles.

 The results of the analysis showed that the most important components of professional ethics development identified in the higher education system of the country include: educational (development of professional ethics in specialized knowledge, development of professional ethics in interactions between students and professors, development of professional ethics standards in the teaching-learning process), research (development of professional ethics in the behavior of professors and managers, development of professional ethics in the research process, responding to the needs of society), management (ethical commitment of managers to University, development of management professional ethics in relation to staff, faculty and students, professional characteristics of managers) and individual (individual skills and knowledge in the field of professional ethics, religious characteristics, belief and commitment to moral values, psychological characteristics).

 The components of professional ethics development in the higher education system were identified in four categories: educational, research, managerial and individual. Considering the findings of the present study, with the formation of the Professional Ethics Council in the Vice Chancellor for Education and Vice Chancellor for Research, holding workshops, conferences and specialized meetings on professional ethics in the university and producing various educational content in the field of ethics Professionalism and its placement in the professional ethics system for the use of students, professors, staff and administrators can provide the best possible context for the implementation of these components.