An exploration into the PhD applicant's and faculty member's views on different methods of PhD applicant's selection

This research was carried out with the aim of exploration, description and explication of PhD applicants’ and faculty members’ attitudes on the method of the PhD applicants’ selection (semi-focused and non-focused).
To do so, a mixed-methods design was used and the data was collocated in two stages from the academics and also the experts in different fields. In qualitative process about 70 professors and students in different majors were individually interviewed in focus groups; open coding method was used in the process of analyzing the qualitative data, then, the concerns and mental stresses of the beneficiaries in this area were identified. In the quantitative part, 500 academics from the universities in Tehran were asked to answer the researcher-made questionnaires and then the questionnaires were analyzed very carefully. Especially in administrative part, the executive priority was given to the qualitative research and analysis of qualitative findings.
the discussion was carried out based on the findings of qualitative analysis. In each part, for the purpose of comparing, approving or determining the conflicting cases, the findings of quantitative analysis were presented together with the qualitative findings.
the results showed that there was a significant difference between the professors’ and students’ attitudes on the selection of PhD applicants in semi-focused method; namely the professors tended to have more share in the process of selecting PhD applicants, while the applicants were in favor of allocating more share to national organization of educational testing (NOET) in the selection process.