Investigating the Quantitative Status of Theses and Dissertations in Humanities with an Islamic Approach at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 1984-2014

Purpose: The aim of the present paper was to study the quantitative status of the theses and dissertations in humanities education with an Islamic approach at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 4 colleges including Letters and Humanities, Theology, Administrative and Economic Sciences, Education and Psychology, in a 31-years period (1984-2014) to determine the role of this university in science products with Islamic approaches.
Methodology: This study was an applied research and was done by scientometrics methods. The research population consisted of all theses and dissertations in the field of humanities with an Islamic approach in the mentioned areas and period. There was no sampling in this study and all theses and dissertations with an Islamic approach were studied in four mentioned colleges.
Findings:The results showed that during this period, 1201 theses and dissertations with Islamic approach were registered at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad among which the field of jurisprudence and Islamic law with 341 items had the highest frequency, and English language and literature and French language and literature, each with 5 items, the least numbers. Among the academic areas, the Faculty of Theology had the most contibution, and the Faculty of Education and Psychology had the least contribution in the production of theses and dissertations with Islamic approach. 1072 items were produced by Master’s and 129 items were produced by PhD students. Among the identified issues, the subject of the Quran, criminal law (jurisprudence) and Quran interpretations were identified as top issues.The average annual growth in the production of theses and dissertations in humanities with an Islamic approach was equal to 44.35%. According to an annual growth rate of 32.83% of the whole theses and dissertations in the areas of humanities education, this rate was much more. Out of 210 scientific papers extracted from identified theses and dissertations, 133 items were produced by M.A. and 77 by PhD students. Finally, the scientific map of detected Islamic theses and dissertations was drawn and analyzed using Vosviewer application. The results showed that the scientific map of theses and dissertations with Islamic approach in the mentioned population, based on the analysis of the co-vocabulary was composed of seven thematic clusters. The type of the co-vocabulary network was also continuous. Based on hierarchical clustering, 23 thematic clusters identified from which Quran identified as root and 22 other clusters were located in the heart of it.
Conclusion: Although there has been and increasing trend in publishing theses and desertaions with humanities and Islamic approaches in Ferdowsi University, this growth has not been identical in different years. The authorities should encourage the students and scholars to learn the methodology of Islamic research to conduct more studies in the field of religion.