The relationship between the national exam and the planned curriculum in secondary school

 This study aimed to investigate the impact of the national test on the intended curriculum in high schools and propose a model for understanding this relationship. The research followed a consecutive exploratory mixed methods design, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative stage utilized a data-driven method, employing semi-structured interviews, while the quantitative stage employed a descriptive survey. Curriculum, as one of the basic elements in education, provides the means of education, which includes two categories open curriculum (including intended curriculum, implemented curriculum, and acquired curriculum), and hidden curriculum. The planned curriculum pays attention to the aims, goals, content, teaching-learning methods, and tools provided in the curriculum, which are suggested and prescribed by the planners in an educational system. The implemented curriculum is a set of teaching-learning actions and activities that are implemented in real classroom environments based on the intended program and what the teachers have learned from it.

 The qualitative phase involved 12 university experts specializing in educational sciences and psychometrics. Sampling was conducted using the principle of saturation and purposive sampling. In the quantitative phase, all secondary school teachers in the cities of Tehran province were included as the statistical population. The sample size was determined based on the Morgan table, resulting in a sample of 400 participants. Stepwise random sampling was used for participant selection. Data collection tools included semi-structured individual interviews in the qualitative phase and an Intended Curriculum Questionnaire comprising 16 questions based on identified components in the quantitative phase. The collected data were analyzed using content analysis in the qualitative part and descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis) as well as inferential statistics (exploratory factor analysis, analysis of covariance, and dependent t-test) in the quantitative part. SPSS software version 22 and Lisrel-88 were utilized for the data analysis. In this research, ethical standards including obtaining informed consent, and guaranteeing privacy and confidentiality were observed. Also, at the time of completing the questionnaires, while emphasizing completing all the questions, the participants were free to withdraw from the research at any time and provide personal information. They were assured that the information would remain confidential, which was fully respected.

 The findings indicated that the national test had a significant impact on certain dimensions of the curriculum. Specifically, it was found to be effective in shaping the objectives, content, and evaluation aspects of the curriculum. However, its effectiveness in organizing the content was not as pronounced. Regarding the indicators and components of the intended curriculum based on the relationship of the national exam, 12 experts in this field were interviewed based on a semi-structured interview with 5 questions. This question was answered using the grounded theory approach and MAXQDA software. Table 1 shows the checklist related to the results of interview content analysis using open, central, and selective coding.

 This study demonstrated that the national test had a noticeable impact on the intended curriculum in high schools. The objectives, content, and evaluation dimensions were influenced by the test, indicating its role in shaping these aspects. However, further attention and exploration are required to address the potential shortcomings in organizing the curriculum. These findings contribute to the understanding of the relationship between the national test and the intended curriculum, providing insights for educational policymakers, curriculum designers, and teachers to enhance the alignment between testing practices and the desired educational outcomes. According to several years of experience in education, the need to examine the relationship between the national exam and the intended curriculum by presenting a model in secondary school is one of the most important issues of the day in education. It includes all the families and educational institutions that are mostly directly related to the test so that we can investigate the issue scientifically and by presenting the solutions resulting from the results of this research, the professionals in the field of education are included. Curriculum planners can take steps for this concern and students can act with the provided solutions in choosing their favorite fields in the national entrance exam. Dangerous exams can have positive and negative consequences. Among its negative consequences, we can mention changing the curriculum, emphasis on special subjects, and control of the educational system both in terms of teaching and learning. Various research has shown that these types of tests have upset the balance of this system in different ways, including the financial and economic pressures imposed on families for private classes, and the one-dimensionalization of knowledge. students or the limitation of their skills, class control, changing the learning method, changing the teaching method, creating unhealthy competition between schools and learning centers for more profit, test anxiety, and psychological pressures, and marginalizing cooperative methods. And teaching activists pointed out. Common sense tells us that the social and educational pressures that tests such as entrance exams bring are significant. Unfortunately, due to the inadequacy of different measurement systems in different countries, it is not easy to modify this type of measurement system. Various aspects of the measurement system of the countries have been investigated, reported, and criticized. On the other hand, Vandernest, Long, and Engelbrecht (2018) emphasize that the curriculum can be measured and its intended outputs shape the type of assessment. They say that even though teaching for the exam is temporary; It threatens all curricula and the consequence of such complications is the weakening of curricula, the important point is that studies since 1998 show that the weakening of curricula also weakens the position of teachers. Follows Teaching for the test leads to students' superficial understanding of concepts. In short, the weakening relationship between the test and the curriculum depends a lot on the importance of the test. When there is no feedback system of test results on curriculum, teaching is usually shaped by tests. The lack of connection between the curriculum the tests and the evaluation system leads to the weakening of both systems and minimizes the innovation of the curricula (Research and Innovation Center of the Economic Cooperation and Development Organization, 2008).