Identifying Main Factors in the Internationalization of Higher Education in Iran Najafi Hossein*, Norouzzadeh Reza**, Mansoori Ahmad***, Mansoori Hossein**** *Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Sciences, Payame Noor University, Iran **Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Sciences, Research and Higher Education Programming Institution, Iran ***MA Curriculum Development, Khorasgan (Isfahan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran ****MA Philosophy of Education, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran Online published on 5 July, 2014. Abstract The main objective of the research was identifying factors influencing the internationalization of higher education in Iran. First, the opinions of higher education experts were used to identify these factors. Then, these factors were presented as researcher-made questionnaire to 238 samples including Payame Noor University Professors. After gathering the data, factor analysis was used to identify the factors and fitting indexes applying for the suitability of these factors using SPSS and LISREL software. Factor analysis results lead to identifying five major factors of the internationalization of higher education, respectively, include cultural-social, scientific-academic, economic, technological, political factors with 33 sub-components and total common variance 47.2. Furthermore, fitting indexes of identified factors were identified as appropriate, because the ratio of chi-square (481.09) to degree of freedom (212) obtained equalled to 26.2 less than 3, RMSEA equalled to 0.0039 less than 0.01 standard, P value equalled to 0.181 greater than 0.05 standard, GFI equalled to 0.91 and AGFI equalled to 0.93 greater than 0.90 standard indicating the good fit of the model, as well as determining five major factors of higher education internationalization in Iran. Top Keywords Internationalization, Higher Education, Factors, Iran. Top |