An Analysis of Student-Teacher Interaction in Iranian Electronic Higher Education System

Recently, due to broad global and domestic changes, higher education system in Iran has tried to establish and promote e-learning. Therefore, identifying key factors and various aspects of e-learning environment is essential to implement this type of education efficiently. Literature review shows prominence to the importance of interaction compared to other factors in a way that it has been referred to in most views related to the quality and efficiency of e-learning. The aim of this study is to analyze the state of student-teacher interaction in Iran's electronic higher education system. The study population consisted of all teachers and students of higher education electronic institutions of Iran in the academic year 2014-2015 among which 620 were selected as the sample using the snowball sampling method. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data. The research method is survey, in terms of data collection, and descriptive in terms of nature. The questionnaire reliability was confirmed by both Cronbach's alpha and internal correlation coefficients using the Amos software and structural equation modeling.The results suggest that the state of student-teacher interaction in in Iran's electronic higher education system is significantly unfavorable. Moreover, the analytical result of the state of student-teacher interaction showed a significant difference in various subgroups in terms of university and school group variables, but there was no significant difference among subgroups in terms of gender variable.