Hazırlık okulu yıl sonu İngilizce yeterlilik sınavının öğrencilerin konuşma ve yazma becerileri üzerindeki etkisi

Washback and impact of an exam are generally considered the same, and washback and impact are used as synonyms in the literature. Impact is more general than washback. Impact involves all possible effects of a test on students, and impact can go beyond the classroom context. Despite these differences, the strength of impact can be the same as the degree of washback: (a) positive, (b) negative, (c) both positive and negative, (d) neither positive nor negative. When the test has beneficial effects on teaching and learning, the term 'positive effect' is used. When a test has harmful effects on teaching and learning, the term 'negative effect' is used. When a test has both beneficial and harmful effects on teaching and learning, the term 'both positive and negative effect' is used. Finally, 'neither positive nor negative' is used once a test has no effects on teaching and learning. By taking these into consideration, our study aims to find the impact of a university preparatory school's final English proficiency exam on students' speaking and writing skills, which are highly important in communicative language learning yet difficult to assess. Furthermore, we aim to find the impact of being tested for speaking and writing skills on students' emotions and opinions. To achieve this goal, 40 students and seven instructors from a foundation university's preparatory school in Turkey took part in the study. The study was designed as a qualitative case study. The data were collected through students' spoken and written assignments and open-ended surveys given to students. The data also included English instructors' assessment notes and comments, which were analyzed for inter-rater reliability. To elicit the data from the spoken and written tasks, the rubrics whose reliability and validity had already been tested were used. All the data were analyzed by applying the content analysis method. Based on the results, it is possible to state that the final English proficiency exam has more different degrees of impact on students than the impact of being tested for speaking and writing skills does. The impacts of the final English proficiency exam on students' emotions and opinions towards learning English were (a) positive, (b) both positive and negative, (c) neutral, (d) mostly negative, and (e) negative. On the other hand, the impacts of being tested for writing and speaking skills in the final English proficiency exam were (a) positive, (b) neutral, and (c) negative. It can be said that the larger the exam's content is, the more different degrees of impact on the learners the exam has. Although being tested for speaking and writing has the same degrees of impact, and the most dominant impact of being tested for these skills is the neutral impact, being tested for speaking has a more negative impact on students' emotions and opinions towards learning English. It was also found that the final English proficiency exam has either positive or neutral impacts on students' writing and speaking skills. The positive impact was observed more on students' writing and speaking skills than the neutral impact was. In contrast to students' opinions, it was found that the positive impact of the final English proficiency exam is stronger on students' speaking skills than students' writing skills. As for speaking, the higher the students' proficiency level, the stronger the impact is on students' speaking skills. Hence, it might be said that there is a connection between the students' proficiency levels and the degree of impact for their speaking skills. Nonetheless, this cannot be said for students' writing skills. As for writing skills, it was found that the higher the students' proficiency levels are, the less strong the impact on students' writing skills is. Therefore, there is no link between the students' proficiency levels and the degree of impact on their writing skills. The results of this research will have several implications for teachers, test developers, and administrators to see the importance of a low-stake exam and to increase the possibility of yielding positive and beneficial impact from a low-stake exam.