Curriculum Internationalization in Iran's Higher Education: A Distant Education Perspective

The aim of the current study is to investigate the dimensions of the process of curriculum internalization within a distant learning perspective in Iran’s higher education. In addition to analyzing the reasons for its necessity, it is attempted to assess the causes, conditions, resources, facilities, limitations, opportunities, and its appropriate approaches. Adopting a descriptive-survey design, we sampled, through a clustering approach, 543 Iranian and foreign university students and teachers in five Tehran-based universities. Participants responded to a Likert-scale questionnaire comprising of eight questions and 96 sub-questions. t-test, Friedman ranking, and the analysis of variance were the statistical procedures that were made use of in data analysis. Results reveal that to keep pace with globalization and to make Iranian culture and civilization known to the world, the internationalization of higher education curricula is a must. To this end, utmost efforts should be made to realize the full potential of distant education due to its flexibility and it capability to cross national boundaries.