High school and first year ELT students' perceptions of the English University Entrance Exam (YDT) in Türkiye

The use of high-stakes language exams in Türkiye has been practiced for many years. The previous literature focuses on a critical investigation of these exams. However, very little is currently known about the changes in the perceptions of students before and after taking the YDT exam. Therefore, the ultimate aim of this master's thesis is to investigate whether high school and university students' perceptions of the YDT differ. A convenient sampling method was utilized to choose the participants of the present study and the participants were high-school students who will take the YDT exam, and first-year students who study in the Department of English Language Teaching. The data was collected through a Likert-Type questionnaire including 23 questions. For the qualitative data, focus group interviews were held with the participation of voluntary students who took the questionnaire. Quantitative analysis of the Likert-type items was done using SPSS statistics 23. An Independent sample t-test was conducted to analyze whether there is a statistical difference between high school students and first-year ELT students regarding their perceptions of the YDT exam, and the results were presented in descriptive statistics. The qualitative data was analyzed using Thematic Analysis. The results of this study indicated that there are statistically significant differences in the perceptions of two groups. While university students were more negative on their perceptions, high school students were found to be moderate. It is hoped that the results of this study will provide insights into the pros and cons of YDT exams and suggest further applications for curriculum design and exam preparation. Keywords: university entrance exam, high-stakes testing, language tests, testing, evaluation