Combinational Assessment of the Factors Affecting Public Participation in Iranian Educational Policies

Having citizens' participation, the tension between the legal power of organizations and the social power of citizens would be de-escalated, and policies would be more efficient and effective. There is an issue of non-alignment and non-compatibility between public efforts and the government's actions concerning educational policies in Iran. The purpose of this study, considering the model of public participation in educational policies (Ebrahimikiasari et al, 2022), is to examine the relationships between the factors affecting public participation in educational policies. It also seeks to investigate their prioritization to provide an interpretable summation of the findings.
In this research, we used a multi-strategy approach. After identifying the intensity of regressions between factors, each factor's weight was determined through Fuzzy Hierarchical Analysis. Then, an innovative AHP-SEM model was developed in two dimensions. Using the calculated weight as the priority of factors in one dimension, and their incoming regression as explainability in the other dimension, the model created four clusters. Clustering these factors based on explainability and weight was done based on the severity of scales introduced in the dimensions i.e., Immediate Action, Research, Desirable, and Monitoring.
Based on the calculated regression coefficient, information, and executive organization factors were the most explainable. Interestingly, the explainability of the justice factor declined to half of the highest explainable factors. Nonetheless, in the hierarchical analysis method, legal support and justice accounted for nearly half of the total weights followed by the executive-level factors. The two-dimensional AHP-SEM model placed legal support, executive organization, and information in the Immediate Action Cluster. Support in the Research Cluster, as well as citizens' beliefs and capabilities, were in the Desirable Cluster. The social level factors were in the Monitoring Cluster.
According to the findings, since the factors of executive organizations, information, and legal support that are associated with the Immediate Action cluster have both high priority and explainability power, they can be improved by developing their independent variables shown in the conceptual model. Regarding the justice factor, in addition to improving the structural factors affecting it, as shown in the conceptual model, to compensate for the unexplained regression, it is vital to examine the subjective interpretations citizens have of perceived justice. The third priority of action is the development of the beliefs and abilities of citizens in the Desired Cluster. This requires improving factors in the Immediate Action and the Research Cluster through the justice factor. It is necessary to monitor them at the social level in the Monitoring Cluster. Since they are not improvable in the short term, they should be observed and assessed to be corrected and navigated through future research.