Challenges and Outcomes of Internationalization of Higher Education Curricula From the Perspective of Students (Case Study: Viewpoint of Graduate Students at Shiraz University)

The purpose of this study was to examine the challenges and perspectives of the internationalization of curricula from the viewpoint of graduate students.

The present research was carried out with a quantitative approach by using a survey strategy. The research population of the study was 2,779 graduate students of Shiraz University. 338 students were selected by stratified random sampling method and studied. The research instrument was a questionnaire made by the researcher adapted from Fathi Vajargah (2009) and Bostrom (2010) studies. To determine the validity of the questionnaire, we used Cronbach's alpha coefficient test. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics method including one-sample t-test, Pearson correlation analysis, and multiple variance analysis were used.

The results of this study showed that from viewpoint of graduate students, the problems of equipment, human, content, and teaching methods are one of the most important challenges of internationalization of academic curricula. Furthermore, from the viewpoint of postgraduate students, the most positive outcome of the internationalization of academic curricula is the improvement of university quality, the worst consequence of internationalization of academic curricula is the excessive tendency to commercialize academic programs.

The existing study showed that according to graduate students, the university will face more positive consequences in the process of internationalization of curricula. The students believed that the development and internationalization of curricula created opportunities to attract foreign elites, change the approach to education to change global citizenship, enable innovation in academic curricula, access to new theories and research, innovation in teaching and research, diversification of educational programs and competencies, increasing competitiveness.