Abbas Abbaspour; Golpar Mehrabi; Ali Delavar; Ali Khorsandi Taskooh
Abstract
Researchers are increasingly concerned with qualitative deficiencies in the scientific attributes of their research.It is crucial to examine the influential factors that shape research quality,with the goal of developing a model that can effectively enhance research quality.To this end, the present study ...
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Researchers are increasingly concerned with qualitative deficiencies in the scientific attributes of their research.It is crucial to examine the influential factors that shape research quality,with the goal of developing a model that can effectively enhance research quality.To this end, the present study aimed to design and validate a model for research quality in universities specializing in humanities and social sciences.Employing an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, the research comprised two distinct phases:qualitative and quantitative.Based on grounded theory and semi-structured interviews with19 experts, the qualitative phase led to the extraction of semantic codes related to academic research quality.Strauss and Corbin’s method of systematic coding was then used to analyze the qualitative data in three stages:open coding, axial coding, and selective coding.This resulted in the identification of503concepts and29subcategories, and eight main categories. Considering the data analysis, research management and regulations emerged as causal conditions, with research quality excellence as the main category, technical features and globalization as contextual conditions, human resources as intervening conditions, monitoring and evaluation as action/interaction conditions, and finally, effectiveness and efficiency and acceptance of research results as consequences.In the quantitative section, a researcher-made questionnaire was developed based on the main categories, subcategories, and concepts.The questionnaire was then administered to a sample of 95 individuals selected through convenience sampling from the faculty members of higher education centers of humanities and social sciences.The evaluation of the model, both in its overall configuration and within its submodels, revealed that all factor loadings associated with the questionnaire items as well as the relationships between subcategories and main categories fall within an acceptably standardized range, which generally proves the model fit and validity.The research findings can provide systematically useful strategies to improve academic research quality in the humanities and social sciences, thus contributing to the enhancement of academic research quality in these fields.
