A Washback Study on English Academic Achievement from Eighth to Twelfth Grade

The aim of this study is to reveal the washback effect of high-stakes national exams on English language achievement. Within this scope, the study was conducted with 78 twelfth-grade students from four different high schools in Batman during the spring semester of the 2017–2018 academic year. The participants had previously taken the English section of the 2014 TEOG exam in 8th grade, and the same test was re-administered within the scope of this research. The newly obtained "TEOG-RETAKE" scores were compared with the original scores. As data collection tools, the 2014 TEOG English test published by the Ministry of National Education and a semi-structured teacher interview form developed by the researcher were used. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test in SPSS 22.0, while qualitative data were interpreted through content analysis. The findings revealed that students failed to maintain their previous level of success in the retest, showing a statistically significant decrease in favor of the original TEOG scores. Teacher views indicated that the exclusion of English from the university entrance exam negatively affected students' motivation and reduced the instructional weight of the course. The results demonstrate that an exam-oriented system creates a negative washback effect on students’ academic achievement in English.