Effect of University Entrance Exam on Gifted High School Students’ Motivation Scrutinized: An Iranian Perspective

Passing University Entrance Exams (UEE) successfully has long been a major concern for Iranian high school students. High Schools for the Gifted admit highly intelligent and hardworking students, who reportedly form a remarkable proportion of students admitted in best universities of Iran, through hard entrance exams. This study aimed to investigate attitudes of students educating in High Schools for the Gifted towards learning English, their dominant motivation type (instrumental or integrative), and the likely effect Iranian University Entrance Exam has on their motivation. For the purpose of this investigation, 166 male and female participants educating in the four grades of high school were selected through Stratified Random Sampling Method from both boys’ and girls’ High Schools for the Gifted. A 26-item questioner previously developed by the researchers, investigating the participants’ attitudes towards English learning, their dominant motivation type, and the likely effect of Iranian UEE on their motivation was administered to them. Descriptive statistics and the analysis of variance were used to analyze the data, and the results revealed that all participants educating in the four grades of high school showed positive attitudes towards English learning, and that 1st and 2nd grade subjects were both instrumentally and integratively motivated, whereas 3rd and 4th graders were instrumentally motivated. The degree of subjects’ concern about the Iranian UEE significantly affected their motivational orientations and prioritization.