study of the applicant's viewpoints regarding the doctoral admission interviews

Academic interview as an important part of doctoral admission can help universities and higher education institutions to do more accurate assessment of the doctoral applicants and select top talented students. This research therefore, aimed to study the doctoral applicants’ viewpoints about the nature, quality and appropriateness of doctoral admission interviews. Statistical population included doctoral applicants who were invited for interviews by University of Tehran, Shahid Beheshti University, Kharazmi University and Allameh Tabatabai University of whom 80 candidates were selected purposefully. Since a mixed approach (quantitative and qualitative) was applied, data were collected via a series of exploratory interviews and a questionnaire included 24 closed item questions that were derived from the results of interviews. In order to analyze data, in addition to descriptive analysis, exploratory factor analysis was applied to identify main factors. The findings revealed that not only the universities’ approaches to hold interviews sessions were different but also different parameters were considered by universities for assessing the applicant's academic performance and backgrounds. Furthermore, although the interviews were focusing on minor issues; the special abilities of applicants were not considered vital.