Identifying and Leveling of Effective Factors on the Social Role of the University System based on Interpretive Structural Equations

 Examining the effective factors on the social role of the higher education system can help to improve it. As a result, the aim of this research was identifying and leveling the effective factors on the social role of the university system based on interpretive structural equations.

 This study was in terms of purpose applied and in terms of implementation method was cross-sectional. The research population in the qualitative section was documents and texts related to research and experts in this field. The numbers of 50 documents and texts were selected by purposive sampling method and numbers of 10 experts were selected as samples by purposive sampling method. The data were collected by taking notes from documents and texts and a survey from experts about the researcher-made questionnaire and were analyzed by the interpretive structural equation method in PLS software.

 The findings showed that the effective factors on the social role of the higher education system were included 11 factors of challenging the university curriculum, promoting forms of social participation, preparing students for public jobs, active citizenship curriculum, teaching and learning social responsibility, research-oriented, social projects, cultivating competent people, eligible citizens development, attention to the views of social stakeholders in the university system and social sensitivity education. The results of interpretive structural equations showed that the factor of promoting forms of social participation was on the first level, the factors of research-oriented and cultivating competent people was on the second level, the factor of teaching and learning social responsibility was on the third level, the factors of challenging the university curriculum and preparing students for public jobs was on the fourth level, the factors of active citizenship curriculum, attention to the views of social stakeholders in the university system and social sensitivity education was on the fifth level, the factor eligible citizens development was on the sixth level and the factor of social projects was on the seventh level, and based on the interpretive structural model of the effective factors on the social role of the university system was designed.

 According to the results of the present study, higher education planners and specialists can use the results of this study and use the identified effective factors on the social role of the university system to improve the state of the university and gain a competitive advantage.