İngilizce Lisans Yerleştirme Sınavı (LYS-5) Alt Bölümleri Üzerine Bir Araştırma

Öz

Dil o kadar üretimsel ve sürekli gelişen bir öğe ki dilin ne anlama geldiğini ve nasıl değerlendirileceğini tanımlamak gerçekten zordur. Aslında, dil becerisi ve dilin doğası hakkında bir anlayış geliştirmek, dil değerlendirmesini aydınlatabilir. Bunun nedeni, herhangi bir dil yeterliliği testinin görünüşte test geliştiricilerinin dil yapısını nasıl tanımlayıp tanımladığına bağlıdır. Son yirmi yılda, katılanlar için önemli sonuçları olan İngilizce sınavlarına verilen önem artmıştır, çünkü bu sınavların sonuçları sınav katılımcısının üniversitesine veya okula kabul edilmesine karar verirken kullanılır. Bu çalışma, Türkiye'deki İngilizce lisans yerleştirme sınavının alt bölümlerini, testteki öğelerin biçimini ve gerçekte neyi ölçtüklerini (örn. çoktan seçmeli okuduğunu anlama, çeviri, kelime bilgisi, dil bilgisi vb.) ve testteki çoktan seçmeli çeviri öğelerinin açık uçlu çeviri öğeleri kadar iyi olup olmadığı araştırmaktadır. Açımlayıcı faktör analizlerinin ve döndürülmüş bileşen matrisinin sonuçları, kelime bilgisinin ve dilbilgisinin, test tarafından ölçülen ve “dilbilgisi ile ilgili”, “kelime ile ilgili” ve “genel yetenek” olabilecek üç faktör tarafından paylaşılabileceğini göstermiştir. Ayrıca, çoktan seçmeli çeviri puanları, açık uçlu çeviri testinin puanları ile uyuşmamıştır. Bu makale, test geliştiricilerinin daha iyi ve yüksek kaliteli testler geliştirebilmeleri için LYS-5 gibi katılanlar için önemli sonuçları olan dil sınavları üzerinde daha fazla çalışmaları ve odaklanmaları gerektiğini vurgulamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• High-stakes tests
• undergraduate placement examination
• LYS-5
• English language testing

An Investigation of the Subsections of Undergraduate Placement Examination of English (LYS-5)

Öz

Language is so generative and continuously evolving that defining what is meant by language and how to assess it are real challenges. In essence, developing an understanding of language ability and the nature of language can enlighten language assessment. The reason is that any test of language proficiency seemingly depends on how test developers define and describe the language construct. In the last two decades, the importance attached to high-stakes exams of English has risen because the results of these exams are used while making decisions regarding a test taker’s university or school admission. The aim of this study is to investigate the subsections of undergraduate placement examination of English (LYS-5) in Turkey by describing the form of the items in the test and what they are actually measuring (e.g. multiple-choice items of reading comprehension, translation, vocabulary, grammar, and etc.) and whether the multiple-choice translation items in the test are as good as open-ended translation items. The results of the exploratory factor analyses and the rotated component matrix indicated that vocabulary and grammar are all shared by those three abilities (factors) measured by the test, which could be grammar-related, vocabulary-related, and overall-ability. Besides, multiple-choice translation scores did not correlate with the scores of the open-ended translation test. The paper suggests that test developers need to study and focus more on high-stakes language exams like LYS-5 so that better and high-quality tests can be developed.

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