Lecturers’ Opinions on Selecting Texts to Measure Reading Skills in Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

This study examines the challenges faced by lecturers and item writers in selecting and creating texts for assessing reading comprehension in teaching Turkish as a foreign/second language. Conducted within the national e-YDTS four-skill Turkish proficiency test development project coordinated by the Measurement, Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM), the study aims to inform the development of a valid and reliable CEFR-aligned assessment system. Using qualitative case study design, data were collected through open-ended survey questions from 20 lecturers involved in item-writing workshops. Descriptive and content analyses were employed. The findings reveal that text difficulty is mainly determined by quantitative features such as vocabulary load, sentence complexity, and text length, while qualitative features—discourse structure, rhetorical organization, cultural references, and stylistic elements—are largely overlooked. Participants also reported difficulties in maintaining textual authenticity while aligning texts with exam specifications and CEFR-based outcomes, particularly for inferential reading tasks. The study concludes that systematic training, clear text adaptation guidelines, and tools for qualitative text analysis are needed to enhance assessment validity and reliability. Keywords: Teaching Turkish as a foreign/second language, language assessment, assessing reading, text selection