a model for investigating the educational quality of universities in iran

Purpose–the current study was conducted with the aim of designing and validating a model for measuring the educational quality of iran’s universities. methodology–this study was implemented using a mixed method research along with an exploratory scheme and development of a planning tool. in qualitative section of the study, an underlying model with the title of insightful education was designed using grounded theory, interviewing with 18 experts of higher education as well as the use of open, selective and axil coding approach. thereafter, based on the concepts and categories of this model, a questionnaire including 6 components and 77 sub-components was prepared. in line with this, in quantitative section, the designed questionnaire was conducted on 42 experts of iran’s higher education. based on the obtained feedbacks, the procedure of modifying the questionnaire was initialized. then, the final and modified version of the questionnaire was handed out to 166 experts of iran’s higher education. the validity of the questionnaire was certified by experts and its reliability was assessed using cronbach’s alpha equaled to (0.941). in qualitative section, non-probabilistic purposeful sampling method and in quantitative section, random stratified sampling method were used. to examine the aforementioned model, structural equation modeling analysis approach was employed.findings– by doing confirmatory factor analysis, all factors were approved. the results of second-order confirmatory factor analysis indicates that all 6 factors have sufficient factor loading in order to predict the educational quality measurement model of iran’s universities. also, goodness of fit indices such as, (cmin.df) which equals to 2.261, (rmsea) = 0.087, (gfi) equal= 0.996, (agfi) = 0.968, (cfi) = 0.996, (nnfi) = 0.959, (tli) = 0.982, (ifi) = 0.901 and (rfi) = 0.941.significance– the results of statistical tests show, designed model enjoys very favorable fitness for measuring the educational quality of iran’s universities.