Lived Experience of Entrance Exam with Emphasis on its Stressful Consequences

The entrance exam is an essential topic as one of the most important educational, cultural, and social events for participants. The role of the examiner in determining the future and destiny of people on the one hand, and the lack of entry facilities for some fields, student experiences and their efforts from the months and years ahead, and the use of resources and facilities to prepare for entrance exam, make this competition a severe matter for students, families and schools. The purpose of this research was to investigate the experience of living in individuals after one or two companies in the entrance exam. The method used in this research was a qualitative data approach of the Grounded Theory (GT) that was used to extract the underlying factors, causality and interventional process in the entrance exam experience and its outcomes. The participants were 11 current state and non-governmental students who had one or two year’s experiences in the entrance exam. After the interview, there were 118 sub-themes that were categorized into 18 main themes. These 18 main themes were categorized into six groups: underlying factors, causality, meddler, main phenomena, process, and outcomes. The results of this study showed that based on the experience of individuals, family, personality characteristics, and a prepared class of entrance exams, friends, social atmosphere, school, and field were the underlying and meddler factors. Academic planning, psychological characteristics, unwanted factors, and reading method were the causative factors in the entrance exam. Planning, effort, self-knowledge, and to get help in process factors and satisfaction or dissatisfaction and stress are the outcomes of the entrance exam. The results of this study indicate that the entrance exam is a complex phenomenon from the viewpoint of the participants, in which various factors are effective. Stress as a negative consequence in the exam is a subject experienced in all individuals, whether successful or unsuccessful.