Curriculum Design and Development in Selected Universities: criteria extraction for designing an optimal university curriculum model

The impact of science and technology’s swift changes globally has led to upheavals in all areas of life. Higher education has not been exempted from these changes and consequences, so that technological changes in the last decade have had a great impact on the body of higher education, especially in curricula, as the heart of the higher education system. Curricula, on the one hand, drive change and, on the other, act against change. Therefore, to develop academic curricula as a generator of constructive change, using intercultural experiences and consolidating the achievements of leading universities will be very effective as a cornerstone to develop a comprehensive and practical framework in this field. Accordingly, the current study was conducted to investigate the design and development of curricula in selected universities in order to extract common criteria for achieving this imperative goal. Consequently, in this study, documentary research method was used by using content analysis technique. The documents of five universities were reviewed in terms of purpose, principles, learning outcomes, content, evaluation, planning process and teaching-learning strategies. In conclusion, based on the criteria and sub-criteria in each of the mentioned categories, a framework for designing and developing a curriculum in Iran’s higher education was developed and sent to the universities.