WASHBACK EFFECTS OF THE INTER-UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE EXAMINATION ON FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMPETENCES OF CANDIDATE ACADEMICS

This paper presents a study investigating the washback effect of Inter-university Foreign Language Examination (ILE) on candidate academics in Turkey. Over the last decades, washback studies have become even more critical in the field of applied linguistics due to unanimous remarks of the international research studies indicating the critical role of the high-stakes tests on students, teachers and societies. Also an effective understanding of washback is now much more important because of the increasing number of international testees taking these examinations. The present study follows twelve candidate academics during their preparation for ILE. In a qualitative design, the findings show that ILE has a negative washback effect on numerous micro and macro level variables.