Abstract:
This study aimed at identifying the most frequent test-taking strategies used by successful Iranian male and female university entrance exam EFL applicants. To this end, 150 English major male and female freshman students who got admission to three reputable state universities of Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tehran were selected conveniently and purposively. The model used in this study was developed by Barati (2005) consisting of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and test-wiseness strategies. After selecting the participants, the modified questionnaire developed based on Barati’s test-taking strategy taxonomy was distributed among the participants. Based on the analysis of results, it was revealed that the EFL learners made frequent use of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and test-wiseness strategies, but only the level of use of planning and monitoring strategies reached statistical significance. Moreover, male and female EFL learners were only significantly different in their use of evaluation strategies, but in terms of using planning, monitoring, and test-wiseness strategies, males and females were not significantly different from one another. The findings of the study bear useful implications for EFL learners, teachers, materials designers, and test constructors.
Machine summary:
Test-taking Strategies Used by Successful Iranian Male and Female University Entrance Exam EFL Applicants Atefeh Molavi, M.
com Abstract This study aimed at identifying the most frequent test-taking strategies used by successful Iranian male and female university entrance exam EFL applicants.
Keywords: Test-taking strategies, University Entrance Exam, high-stake tests, Iranian freshman EFL students Introduction Testing plays a pivotal role in the education process to enhance and strengthen ongoing learning, and has a significant impact on the quality of pedagogy (Cowie & Bell, 1999).
University Entrance Examination (UEE) in Iran as a nationwide high-stake test could affect many aspects of the education system but the nature of its impact on the English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' curricular planning and instruction techniques is not clear.
In the present study, Barati’s model was used to probe into the appropriate test taking strategies which have been used by successful UEE candidates on English section of this important high-stake test in Iran.
In a more recent study, Kashkouli, Barati, and Nejad Ansari (2015) examined the test- taking strategies employed to answer the Iranian National University Entrance Exam for MA in TEFL.
As the last step in analyzing the EFL learners’ responses to the questionnaire, the researchers found for which types of test-taking strategies, on the whole, the learners expressed their agreement, and whether their agreement reached a statistically significant level or not.
Another study conducted by Nikneshan and Barati (2019) on test-taking strategies and EFL learners’ performance on the reading sub-test of Iranian Universities PhD entrance exam demonstrated that monitoring and evaluation strategies were used significantly more than other strategies by all ability groups.