Objective: investigating psychometric properties of the questionnaire Quality of Culture in the Higher Education System .

Methods: The research method was a mixed exploratory type, which in the qualitative part was based on the phenomenological method and aimed to evaluate the lived experience of individuals in relation to the problem, including four groups of faculty members, staff, managers and students from different faculties of the university, which was saturated after interviewing 61 participants. The quantitative part of this research was a correlational and instrument development type, and 510 university activists including faculty members, teaching and administrative staff and university students formed the research sample in an accessible manner. In constructing the tool, psychometric properties were examined based on classical test theory (CTT) and Item-response theory (IRT).

Results: At first, content and construct validity were examined and confirmed using factor analysis; the validity of the instrument obtained with the McDonald reliability coefficient in the quality culture questionnaire was 0.883 and above 0.7 in all subscales. In the item analysis based on the Item-response theory, the findings showed that the partial credit model (PCM) has a better fit with the data of the evaluation culture questionnaire.

Conclusion: The questionnaire, due to its desirable psychometric and multi-level characteristics, is an efficient tool for measuring the type of quality culture and comparing the current and ideal situation.