Journal of Iranian Higher Education
Year:2012 | Volume:4 | Issue:4 (16)|Papers Count:9

The purpose of this study was to identify factors influencing fourth-grade high school students' decision-making to continue their education in university.Survey method was used and the data was collected through using a researcher-made questionnaire. The population of the study consisted of all (N=6175) male and female students in fourth grade public high schools in Kermanshah. These students were majoring in Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Humanities during the academic year of 1389-90. Five hundred forty participants were selected randomly by means of multi-stage cluster sampling. The data was analyzed through mean rank and Freidman test. The results of analysis were as follows: 1) among personal-cognitive factors, enthusiasm to continue education, high educational self-concept, and knowledge-gaining, 2) among familial factors, the parents' expectation of their children to enter university in order to bring honor for the family, high value of studying for the family members and the parents' tendency for their children entering university, 3) among social-cultural factors, high social status, enhancing social interactions, the significance of being a university student among relatives and friends, 4) among the economic factors, finding a good job, having higher income, and students' beliefs considering academic education as a sort of investment and 5) among scholastic factors, field of study, teachers' persuasion, and competition with classmates were the major influential factors in students' decisions to continue their education in university.

This survey aims to analyze the role and impact of the applicants' socioeconomic status and other related variables on their educational performances (total score) in nationwide examinations during last 9 years. The socioeconomic status include variables such as parents education, fathers job, family income, gender and the applicants' hometown conditions in human sciences group. The statistical population is total applicants of human sciences group who took part in examination during 2001 to 2009. The data was gathered based on NOET ' S data files and questionnaires were distributed during exams. The population included 4, 105, 542 applicants in human sciences group with condition is no more than one year passed from their graduations also the type of their diploma is related to the group of examination. Based on above conditions and ignoring missing data, sample included 1, 217, 321 applicants. Multilevel modeling was used for analyzing data by HLM software in three levels. The findings show that socioeconomic status (with different sizes) increases the total scores. The finding also revealed that female applicants have had better performance than male one. In addition, the educational performance increases by year of exam and these differences in human sciences group are more than other groups.Furthermore, the increase of parents' education level and father job's causes the increase of educational performances (total score). Comparing the impact of parents' education showed that applicants' educational performance was more affected by their mothers' education than their fathers' education.

School counselors have an important role in guiding of students for entrance exam, and their academic needs, problems and difficulties. Indeed high school students perceive counselors as the first source of reliable information for their problems. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the opinions of school counselors about needs, issues and difficulties in the admission process via the university entrance exam, and the discipline selection. Data gathered from 143 school counselors via an open ended questionnaire and paired comparison questionnaire. Based on three research questions, applicants' needs and difficulties and also the ways to fix them were investigated. The data were analyzed in two stages. The findings showed that the applicants' ranked order needs include awareness of the employment possibility in each of the academic disciplines, familiarity with the disciplines and universities, availability of counseling centers and skilled counselors, familiarity with the course selection methods, information about course selection, avoiding factors and conditions cause anxiety, access to applicants' choices in previous years. According to respondents unfamiliarity with the academic disciplines and their future career choice and study, selection constraints (interest, parents, grade and rank, separation from family, etc.), restricted access to consultancy centers and experienced consultants, lack of adequate information about the fields and facilities in universities, lack of information about technical points in course selection, difficulty in informing and educating on the course selection the previous years are among the main difficulties and needs of the applicants.

This article reports the process of establishing and developing calibrated item bank based on item- response theory.30 differential calculi multiple choice items were experimentally administered on a sample group of 3409 junior high school students. Maximum Test Information Function over theta scale on point 0.95 was 43.21. On this point of the theta scale, the ability was estimated with minimum measurement error. After specifying test item's parameters and calibrating the test items into a pool, Fast-test Professional Software, a linier sub test was developed with items discriminationn of 2£ai and local parameters 1£bi£2, respectively. At last 5 items were selected among the 30 bank’s items for the sub test and maximum subtest information function over the theta scale at point 1.35 was 12.48, and hence, information function level decreased 3.46 times because of the subtest shrinkage from 30 to 5 Items. Difficulty level of the subtest increased 0.4 standard deviation units. Furthermore, in order to run computerized adaptive testing, one post simulation study was lunched. This simulation study had shown at most 8 to 10 items were needed to measure individuals' ability with error probability less than 0.01 comparing with the origin test. One of the advantages of such calibrated item bank is estimating the individuals' ability based on calibrated tests with specific goals to decrease efforts and time consumptions and to enhance tests security. Indeed, leverage traditional paper and pencil test taking process to Computerized Adaptive Testing.

Development of higher education depends on recruitment of qualified and committed faculties. Every year some of graduates are recruited by higher education institutes via the Centralized Announcement for Faculty Recruitment (CAFR). In order to execute the “Regulations of the Faculty Recruitment and Promotion”-ratified by Cultural Revolution Committee, for the first time, the CAFR took place in 1389. Using documents at the top ministerial level this paper however, aims to scrutinize the compatibility of social demands and universities faculty recruitment and compatibility of universities recruitments and estimated demand. The findings show that more than 80 percent of social demands are compact in less than 35 percent of majors. In addition, the incompatibility rate of university calls and estimated demands on first step of executing the Fifth Five-Year Program is about 14.5 percent. The rate of incompatibility of university calls and social demands is around 2.5 percent. It should be noted that the incompatibility rate in popular majors is significantly more than the mean incompatibility rate.

This paper aims to study the impacts of Iran's measurement and education organization admission policy for public universities in Iran. In this way two known theory namely human and social capital theories were considered as theoretical framework of the study. Method of research was content analysis of Iran' s website and public mass media which published during the year 2009-2010. For this analysis about 40 websites and electronic newspapers related to a) government, parliament, Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, and Iran's Measurement and Education Organization; b) different political parties; c) politician and academic scholars; d) different news agencies such as Mehr News, Tabnak News, Fars News; and e) different daily newspapers.Two main aspects of Human capital (quantity and quality of human resources) and social capital (social justice, social participation, social trust, social coherence) were analyzed. The findings revealed that this policy was criticized by most of the non-governmental scholars, politicians and commentators. Also the analysis indicated that this policy cannot bring about an environment to development of human and social capital investment.

The present study investigates the hopelessness and self–handicapping as predictive bases for applicants' achievement in graduate entrance examination. A correlation model was used as the research design. The sample includes 240 succeed applicants and 250 failed applicants who took part in graduate entrance examination.Samples were selected from accepted and failed to be accepted by the graduate entrance examination in the state universities of Kurdistan, Hamadan, Oromyah and Kermanshah. All sample students were tested by Beck’s hopelessness and Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales Questionnaires. In addition to the descriptive statistic method, the discriminate analysis method was also applied to analyses the data in this research. The findings showed that the research hypothesis was approved and demonstrated that applicants' failure or success in graduate entrance examination may be predicted based on hopelessness and self–handicapping. Additionally the results derived from data analysis are in agreement with the research literature. This research indicates that the success of applicants in graduate entrance examination can be predicted based on hopelessness and self–handicapping. Hopelessness and self–handicapping therefore have significant power to predict (p<0.001). As a result, based on this model it is possible to suggest some applied solutions for reducing hopelessness and self–handicapping among applicants. This result can also be applied in higher education institutions to help applicants to be succeeded in the graduate entrance examination.