Examining the Effective Factors in the National Ranks of the Entrance Exam Candidates of State Universities and Higher Education Institutions in Iran: A Multilevel Analysis

The present study aimed to examine the effective factors in the rank of national entrance exam of the candidates in state universities and higher education institutes in Iran in the form of a multilevel analysis. Therefore, the data of 5000 candidates was gathered randomly from five experimental groups in the national examination of 2017. The HLM7.30 software was used for multilevel data analysis. The results revealed that among the provinces there is a significant difference in the average national rank of the candidates in Math, Humanity, Art, and English experimental groups. However, there was not any significant difference in the Science group. In the Math group, the average scores of the third year of high school, the total average of diploma, the entrance quota, and gender determined 58.44 percent of the whole variance of the national rank at level one. In the Humanity group the average scores of the third year of high school, the total average of diploma, and gender 49.22 percent. In the Art group the total average of the third year of high school, the entrance quota and gender 15.8 percent; and finally in the English group the average scores of the third year of high school, the total average of diploma, the entrance quota, and gender were wholly 31.45 percent.

Keywords:

the national entrance exam , educational background , entrance quota , local province