A Sociological Study of Obstacles to the Formation of Free-thinking Sessions in the Islamic Azad Universities of Khuzestan with an Emphasis on the Approach (blended research)

The formation of free-thinking sessions is one of the most serious requests of the Supreme Leader of Iran (Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei). However, this request and concern has not been taken into consideration and has not been implemented as it should and perhaps has not been implemented. The present study aims to examine the sociological obstacles to the formation of free-thinking sessions in Azad universities of Khuzestan (Iran), emphasizing the (blended) research approach. The statistical sample size for the quantitative part of the research was 426 people based on Morgan's table, who were selected by simple random method out of 60,641 people provided by students of Azad university of Khuzestan in the academic year of 2022-2023. The theoretical framework of the research is based on the views of the Supreme Leader, Motahari, and sociologists such as Habermas and so on. To examine the hypotheses, a blended method was used using a researcher-made questionnaire technique. In the qualitative section, in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 experts and country managers, experts in the Islamic Seminary and the Supreme Leader's representative Institutes in universities related to holding free-thinking sessions. The findings of data analysis based on the coding steps suggested that the extracted categories are conceptually related to each other. The results of the study showed that the structural equation model of all extracted qualitative components has a positive and significant effect on the formation of free-thinking sessions in the province's Azad universities.