PERCEIVED ATTRIBUTIONS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT

In this paper, how the academic staff studying for YDS exam conceptualizes their success and failure attributions is studied. Academic staff who studied for YDS examination took part in this study. This study refers to 2 different subjects: ‘How do the academic staff studying for YDS exam conceptualize their notion of ‘doing well’ in the exam?’ and ‘What reasons do Academic staff who study for YDS exam attribute their success and failure to?’ Self-assessment survey and questionnaire were applied for data collection and in order to support the data obtained through self-assessment, an online semi-structured interview was conducted. According to the results, in terms of the notion of doing well ‘score’, ‘comparing with others and feedbacks from others’ were the most frequently stated attributions. In one hand, most frequently stated attributions for success were ‘effort and ability’. On the other hand, most frequently stated attributions for failure were ‘effort and task difficulty’. Moreover, possible reasons for the data obtained, related deductions and suggestions were presented in the study. In one hand, most frequently stated attributions for success were ‘study hard and ease of the work’. On the other hand, most frequently stated attributions for failure were ‘lack of time and difficulty of the work’.