Measuring secondary school students' conceptual development through word association test

Word Association Test (WAT) is an old and one of the most widely used measurement techniques in order to determine the development of conceptual changes, existing foreign language (FL) and second language (L2) mental lexicons and mental connections over time. WATs are usually used in the second language (L2/FL) word acquisition studies for the aim of finding out the connections students use while developing their mental lexicons. Besides, WATs can also be used to investigate conceptual development and mental connections over time. The aim of this study is i) using WATs to observe the development of conceptual changes and mental connections over time, ii) evaluating the effects of direct vocabulary teaching on conceptual development and L2/FL mental lexicons. In addition to being a measurement tool, WAT is also used for the data collection in the field. In this study WAT was applied three times as a pre-test, post-test and delayed post-test to secondary school students in a public school in Köşk /Aydın. The students were divided into two groups as control and test group and direct vocabulary instruction was implemented to test group. In the study, the explanatory sequential design of mixed-method research design was employed. For the quantitative analysis, the data were evaluated in frequency tables in the light of word frequencies and they were also shown in word clouds by using one of the Web 2.0 tools called WordArt. For the qualitative analysis, themes were created and then interpreted by content analysis method. Finally, a semi-structured interview was held with 6 of the students via open-ended interview questions. This interview can give further ideas about their conceptual development and for a deeper understanding in content analysis. After the applications, the results were discussed, some limitations and then useful implications were given for the usability of WAT in secondary school context of EFL classes in Turkey. Word Association Test was used to determine cognitive structures and conceptual development of students in vocabulary learning and seen as a general alternative measurement and assessment technique. Key words: word association test (wat), conceptual development, direct vocabulary instruction