Design and Validation of the Internationalization Model of Higher Education in Medical Sciences Universities

Introduction: Internationalization of higher education is an active and creative response towards the globalization phenomenon. The process of internationalization according to national upper documents in the country is assigned as a priority and necessity. The objective of the study is to design and evaluate the model of internationalizing higher education in the state universities of medical sciences. Methods:Study was performed using a mixed method. In the qualitative section, through grounded theory the review of texts and the semi-structured interviews with 20 experts of the international model were designed and in the quantitative section of the validity and fit of the model, completed a questionnaire by 124 people The experts have been identified through structural equation modelling analysis. Results: The internationalization model of higher education in medical universities, there are 16 main factors and 71 sub factors, the main factors include 8 conditional factors (governance- management of university – faculty member-information technology-language and culture-structure of university- management of human resources- management of physical and financial resources), 4 process factors (government function- management of international affairs- international education, and international research) and 4 outcome factors (country development, university development, students and graduated students, organizational sublimit of the university). In quantitative section, the results of first and secondary factor analysis showed that mentioned 16 factors have sufficient load factor to predict the model. The indexes of fitness measurement of final model showed that Chi-square ratio to the degree of freedom (CMIN/DF) equals 2.068. Furthermore, the value of the index of square root of reminder squares mean (RMSE(, equals 0.057.