Investigating the Learning Organization’s Characteristics of Distance Education System in Iran

Nowadays, higher education institutes encounter new challenges like any other organizations and are required to conduct fundamental revisions and transformations in order to survive and act in conformity with the environment. Employing Learning Organization’s characteristics can be considered as a solution to tackle the issue of environmental pressure in the universities. The present research was conducted by applying Senge’s Learning Organization model on the basis of five disciplines which are consisting of personal mastery, mental models, shared visions, team learning and systems thinking at Payame Noor University of Mashhad. The research population included the whole full-time faculty members of Payeme Noor University of Mashhad in2011. The survey was carried out on the faculty members’ viewpoint and the required data was assembled through a standard questionnaire consisting of forty questions based on Likert Scale. Descriptive and inferential statistical methods applied to assess the data. The obtained results indicate that the disciplines of personal mastery, shared visions and systems thinking are at an average level in distance education; however, mental models level is lower than average and the team learning is at a higher level.

Learning Organization, personal mastery, mental models, shared visions, team learning, systems thinking