A multi-level modeling analysis for exploring the scores of the national entrance exam of Iran's universities and higher education institutions

The main goal of this paper is to present a multi-level model for analyzing the scores of the national entrance exam to universities and higher education institutions.Based on its objective, this research is an applied and a descriptive research for analyzing and explaining the factors influencing the total score of the candidates participating in the university entrance exam. We used data of the 2019 year exam which include information on socio-economic status of the candidates' including educational, health, cultural and economic variables at individual level as well as at the level of counties and provinces of the country and We used the HLM software to stimate the multilevel models.The estimation of the three-level model showed that 94.6% of the changes in the total test score were due to the differences in the individual and family characteristics of the candidates. 3.6% of the changes in the total score were related to the educational, health and cultural factors of the city and 1.8% to the economic participation rate of the province. Cosidering that 5.4% of the changes in the total score are related to the geographical location, it can be acknowledged that the difference in the total score of the candidates is not only rooted in their socio-economic status, but the simultaneous effect of this situation with the level of prosperity of the cities from the perspective of educational, health, economic and cultural factors also contributes to the intensification of the difference in the total score.