Expected Learning Outcomes of Undergraduates in the Field of Educational Sciences: A Qualitative Study

Identifying and measuring learning outcomes is a developing approach to higher education that is applied to evaluate and improve its quality. The aim of this study was to identify and categorize the Expected Learning Outcomes of undergraduates in the field of educational sciences. For this purpose, a qualitative approach and a systematic plan of grounded theory at the level of conceptual ordering have been used. In this study, several data collection sources including the curriculum of the undergraduate course of educational sciences approved in 2016 and the views of key experts including faculty members of the University of Tehran, employers of related jobs, and undergraduates of the University of Tehran were used. The qualitative data collection was performed through semi-structured in-depth interviews and with a snowball sampling strategy The data saturation was obtained with 37 interviews. Analysis of qualitative data was performed using software MAXQDA2018 and Strauss open coding and led to the identification of learning outcomes in 4 categories including: cognitive, skill, mental-emotional and social. The findings of this study could form a basis for multiple applications such as curriculum development and revision, tool designing, and quality assessment of Expected Learning Outcomes to improve and ensure the quality of teaching-learning activities in higher education.