An Investigation into Iranian Non-English PhD Students’ Perceptions Regarding Learning as an Educational Consequence of EPT

It appears that English Proficiency Test (EPT) as a high-stakes test plays a key role in addressing many aspects of the educational system and individuals' lives. This paper aimed to represent Iranian non-English PhD students’ perceptions regarding their learning and testing preferences, and to investigate the relationship between educational consequences and psychological consequences of EPT among Iranian non-English PhD students. To reach the goals, two Persian researcher-made questionnaires entitled "educational consequences questionnaire" and "psychological consequences questionnaire" constructed and validated by Rezaeian, Seyyedrezaei, Barani, and Seyyedrezaei, (2020) were utilized. To ensure reliability, a pilot study was conducted on 60 participants and the content validity of the questionnaires confirmed by four experts in the field of language testing and assessment; afterwards, the questionnaires were distributed among 252 students via online administration throughout Iran. The analyzed results by the latest version of SPSS showed that deep learning had the highest mean among other subscales and item 3 in testing preferences which was related to creativity hit the lowest mean score. Moreover, the results confirmed that there was a significant and positive relationship between educational consequences and psychological consequences.