An Induction of Curriculum Leadership Components in Iranian Schools

One of the important elements of the educational system, which forms the core of all educational activities, is the curriculum. The concept of "curriculum" refers to a combination of scientifically structured, practical and experiential elements that help improve learning and aims to prepare and help students' ability to continue living with a particular occupation is by equipping them with knowledge and skills related to that profession. Curricula play a significant role in realizing educational and learning goals, in this sense; it can be considered the heart of the educational system. On the other hand, one of the main and important elements of improving the quality of education is to create a balance between students' attitudes and skills with the latest educational scientific achievements; As a result, the quality of education and its promotion as one of the supreme goals in education is dependent on the implementation of quality and comprehensive curricula. Considering the mentioned materials and considering that research in the field of curriculum leadership is still in a relatively early stage of development worldwide and especially in Iran, the lack of accepted models for making changes in programs as an obstacle to improvement. The curriculum works. Therefore, the vital role of principals in leading the curriculum in schools should be considered. There is a need to analyze the leadership components of the curriculum for Iranian school principals. In the case of analyzing the components of curriculum leadership and its application by Iranian school principals, one can imagine positive consequences such as more correct implementation of educational programs and improving the educational quality of schools, reducing educational costs and generally achieving educational goals while increasing effectiveness and efficiency in the Iranian education system. So curriculum leadership, as one of the most important key elements in reforming and improving the educational system, needs more attention, and the role of principals in curriculum leadership in schools is vital. In this regard, it is necessary to analyze the leadership components of the curriculum for Iranian school, and achieving it is the main goal of the present study.The current research is a part of applied research, which is qualitative in terms of approach and has been carried out using the method of content analysis. Qualitative content analysis is a research method that is used to discover people's understanding of everyday life phenomena and interpret the content of subjective data. The qualitative content analysis method is not only a tool and technique for data analysis, but also a research method that is used by various researchers to conduct research and collect data, in other words researchers stated that the research method of content analysis has epistemological assumptions and has a structure for collecting, analyzing data and organizing data in order to achieve a model or theory. Considering the mentioned explanations, it can be said that qualitative content analysis is an independent research method that is used in order to describe and summarize data, infer from them and develop a model. The studied community of this research included all experts in the field of the studied subject, such as faculty members with expertise and relevant resumes, experienced staff managers and experts of education departments, school principals and expert teachers across the country. In order to identify the subjects, successive purposeful snowball sampling method was used. The criterion for determining the sample size was to reach data saturation, and theoretical saturation was achieved after 19 interviews. The research tool was an in-depth and semi-structured individual interview. Simultaneously with the interviews, their opinions were recorded with prior permission. It should be noted that the interviews lasted 49 minutes on average. Using four related concepts, including the concepts of credibility, transferability, verifiability, and reliability, the reliability of the research was investigated. In order to analyze the data, qualitative content analysis with a directional approach was used. According to the theory of Hsieh & Shannon, content analysis approaches are divided into three categories: conventional or conventional content analysis; summary or cumulative content analysis, and directional content analysis. Sometimes there are theories or previous researches about a phenomenon that are either not complete or need more analysis. In this case, the qualitative researcher chooses the method of content analysis with a directional approach. Data content analysis was done using three stages of open, central and selective coding. In this way, first in open coding, all the notes from the interview were re-read and the main concepts were extracted. In the axial coding phase, according to the semantic affinity of the extracted concepts, the axial categories (components) were formed, and finally, in the selective coding, using the technique of constant comparison of the results and the course of the story, the relationship between the categories with each other and with the main category was determined. And finally, the research model was presented (Figure 2). The results showed that curriculum leadership includes 13 components such as organizational (A), learning (B), scientific and technological (C), management (D), collaborative (E), communicative (F), factors based on experiences (G), cognitive (H), ideological (I), De bureaucratic (J), financial (K), opportunity development (L) and physical development (M). This research brings practical recommended for planners and policy makers in the field of curriculum leadership. Of course, it is necessary to explain that in this research, the curriculum as an independent and integrated subject has been exposed to the judgment of the interviewees, and maybe if the curriculum was presented to the participants in this research, different results would have been obtained in the conceptualization of curriculum leadership. And its components were obtained. Therefore, it is recommended that readers consider this challenge as an important limitation. Among the most important research suggestions, we can mention the analysis of the lived experiences of the principals in the leadership of the curriculum in schools, as well as the analysis of the strategies for developing the participation of all stakeholders in the leadership of the curriculum in Iranian schools.