High school students' achievement levels in applying orthographic rules and punctuation marks (Sample of Ermenek district, Karaman province)

This research aims to determine the high school students' achievement level in applying orthographic rules and correctly using punctuation marks. It is a quantitative research and its main problem is "What is the high school students' achievement level in applying orthographic rules and correctly using punctuation marks?" Because the current situation is presented without an extra variable in this research, it has the characteristics of a descriptive research. The target population of the study consists of eight different public high schools affiliated with The District Directorate of National Education in Ermenek in Karaman province in the 2020-2021 academic year. The purposive sampling, a form of non-probability sampling, is used in the research. The research sample consists of 509 high school students. The research was carried out with 146 students in 9th grades, 126 in 10th grades, 104 in 11th grades and 130 in the 12th grades. The achievement tests applied to the students in the study consist of 30 items measuring orthography achievements and 36 items measuring punctuation marks achievements. To increase content validity, at least 3 years experienced of domain experts, 5 Turkish Language and Literature teachers, were chosen and their opinions were taken. With the contributions of the experts and the teachers, all of the items' content validity indexes were determined in the range of 0,80-1,00, so it was considered to be enough range. After increasing content validity taking the experts' opinions, 120 students took place in its pilot scheme and items analyses are done. As a result of these analyses, it was decided that all of the items would be used in the related tests. However, both of the tests were of medium difficulty. The tests also had high index of distinctiveness and their total item correlations were at good level. Kuder-Richardson-20 analyses were done to assess tests' reliability and it was found that both of these tests had high reliability. After the pilot scheme, because there was no need to change in the tests, 120 students were added to the sample group, too. The confirmatory factor analysis was applied to the test substances for the construct validity. It was seen that the goodness of fit index was at enough range. In the analysis of the data, it was determined that the differences between the spelling rules and punctuation marks achievement levels of the students according to the grade level variable were statistically significant. The spelling and punctuation achievement levels of female students compared to male students were found to be statistically significant, and it was observed that female students' achievement levels were higher in both areas. Within the scope of the research, it was determined that the spelling rules and punctuation achievement of the students in the central schools were higher than the students in the provincial schools. It has been seen that the type of school is also very important in the ability to apply spelling rules and punctuation marks. In the study, based on all these findings, it is suggested to inform the students about the importance of punctuation marks, to have the students do writing exercises and to correct the students' punctuation mistakes by the teacher, to investigate why the spelling and punctuation achievement of female students are higher than male students in future studies, and to improve their spelling and punctuation achievement in central and provincial areas, to investigate the reasons for the achievement differences in schools.