---

A rich research base suggests that high-stakes tests reforms serve as vehicles for promoting quality of learning, standards of teaching, and credible forms of accountability. Iran’s last decade policies to reform its University Entrance Examinations (UEEs) heralded such a case. What sparked off this reform was the long-lasting pernicious impact of the UEEs on curriculum, instruction, learning, and on societal values and access to the upward social mobility. However, attempts to introduce intended changes are often not as effective as their planners hoped. A scrutiny of change ‘antecedent conditions’ as well as its initial ‘process of diffusion’ i.e., a ‘baseline study’ will ameliorate such a failure (Weir & Roberts, 1994, Fekete et al, 1999). Assessing the feasibility of the UEEs reform through such a ‘baseline study’ is a gap in Iran’s reform initiatives. As such, the authors applied Henrichsen’s (1989) Hybrid Diffusion Model (HDM), underscoring an awareness of and a need for evaluation of any changed program from a multiplex of factors, as its theoretical framework to critically evaluate the reformed program. The paper thus first presents the policy deliberations and steering National Documents that pushed through an assessment-led reform in Iran’s education. Then it sketches a detailed discussion of the contextual policies and practices of the long-lasting UEEs program, its alternative and associated stakes. While the results highlight key political dynamics which drove national policymaking, they are suggestive of the challenges, controversies, and risks that thwart the success rate of ideals intended by the underpinning policies. 

---

This explanatory sequential mixed-method study aimed to investigate the washback effect of a local English Proficiency Exam (the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology Test (MSRT)) on Iranian Ph.D. candidates' English language learning skills. The study also examined the changes Iranian Ph.D. candidates perceive as essential to make the MSRT module implementation more useful for English learning. To this end, a sample of 150 Ph.D. candidates with differences in gender, age, and major were invited from Islamic Azad universities of Shiraz and Marvdasht to complete a questionnaire designed in terms of MSRT washback. The participants were chosen through a combination of stratified and convenience sampling methods. Furthermore, a sample of 20 PhD candidates from the same population was selected based on purposeful sampling and participated in the semi-structured interview sessions. The results of the data analysis represented some positive and negative washback effects on MSRT. Moreover, the participants suggested some recommendations on necessary changes and alterations for the MSRT test to facilitate university English learning further. Their feedback was in line with their viewpoints on why MSRT preparation had not satisfactorily prepared them to manage university workloads. The pedagogical implications will be discussed.