Investigation the role of distance education on human resource development in the students of Payam Noor University (Iran)

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the role of distance education on human resources development in the doctoral students of Payam Noor University (PNU). The method of the research was descriptive-survey. The statistical population was consisted of 1082 doctoral students of PNU who 132 students were selected as samples by using the random sampling method and Cochran’s formula. The required data were collected by using a questionnaire with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0. 927 for the component of distance education and 0. 901 for the component of human resources development. The results showed that there was a significant positive relationship between distance education and human resources development at α=0. 01 (r = 0. 841). The result of LISREL analysis showed that distance education affected students’ knowledge، attitude، skill and behavior as the components of human resources development. Chi-square to df ratio (1. 23) was less than three. The value of RMSEA (0. 0033) was less than the threshold (α=0. 01). P-value (0. 321) was greater than the threshold (α=0. 05) and the values of GFI (0. 92) and AGFI (0. 96) were greater than the threshold (0. 90). All of them suggested the goodness of fit of the model and further indicated the causal relationship between the distance education and human resources development.