How Does Large-Scale Assessments Affect Mother Tongue Lessons?

Abstract

The concept of large-scale assessment has long been on the concern of the education system worldwide. PISA, which is one of the large-scale international assessment, has been administered in a number of countries worldwide since 2000. When PISA was first launched, there was an “unconditional acceptance” of this new application worldwide, whereas studies conducted in recent years show that all positive and negative effects of PISA are open to discussion and these discussions are increasing in number. Taking these as a starting point, the present research aimed to determine mother tongue teachers’ views on PISA tests. Aiming to reveal how the changes created by the universal effect of PISA in language education are perceived and handled by teachers, this study was carried out with the relational survey method. The obtained categorical data were analyzed by frequency analysis and logistic regression. The study group consists of 98 teachers teaching mother tongue. In this research conducted to determine mother tongue teachers’ views on PISA tests, teachers stated that PISA was effective in developing higher-order thinking skills in mother tongue lessons. In addition, according to teachers’ opinions, PISA affects the assessment and evaluation process the most among the learning and teaching processes. According to the other findings, teachers stated that the question types in national tests changed based on PISA and they partially approved of this change. Also, they thought that PISA reading questions were incompatible with Turkey’s education system, and they found Turkey’s rise in the latest PISA reading skills ranking significant.