Comparison of Strategic Plans of Universities and Institutes of Higher Education with a Quantitative Approach

Strategic planning in Iranian universities and institutes of higher education is generally prepared using strategic planning models introduced by experts and other universities. These programs will be published in the form of university strategic planning documents. These documents have such features that can be similar or different than the programming templates used. Existence of the similar properties in documents makes it possible to group them. In this study, we try to use quantitative (Statistical) methods for grouping similar documents into homogeneous groups. For this purpose, the content and formal characteristics of the planning documents of eight different universities, including three governmental University (Tehran, Tarbiat Modares and Ferdowsi), three nongovernmental universities and institutes of higher education (science and culture, Soreh and Ashrafi Esfahani), and two foreign universities (Oxford and The Cornell) has been investigated and the presence or absence of these features has been determined and then Using clustering as a multivariate statistical method, these universities were grouped into 4 different clusters. In order to determine the model which is used in compiling strategic planning documents of the selected universities, the characteristics of 12 different strategic planning models have been studied, and the similarity of each of them with the investigated documents has been determined. The results of this study showed that investigated strategic planning documents were grouped into four groups, and each of these documents probably used a distinctive pattern than the other groups. The result of this quantitative survey can be used as an introduction to the qualitative analysis of the documents under review. In addition, the survey results showed that none of the selected Iranian universities designed their own specific model for strategic planning. In other words, the models used in the planning of the universities under study were generally adaptive and the specific approach for none of the  universities was not considered. This matter can challenge the success of universities in the operationalizing of derived planning documents.