Although foreign language testing has been subject to some changes in line with the different perspectives on learning and language teaching, multiple-choice items have been considerably popular regardless of these perspectives and trends in foreign language teaching. There have been some studies focusing on the efficiency of multiple choice items in different contexts. In Turkish context multiple choice items have been commonly used as standardized stake holder tests as a requirement for undergraduate level for the departments such as English Language Teaching, Western Languages and Literatures and Translation Studies and academic progress of the students in departments. Moreover, multiple choice items have been used noticeably in all levels of language instruction. However, there hasn’t been enough item analysis of multiple-choice tests in terms of item discrimination, item facility and distractor efficiency. The present study aims to analyze the multiple choice items aiming to test grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension and administrated at a state university to preptory class students. In the study, 453 students’ responses have been analyzed in terms of item facility, item discrimination and distractor efficiency by using the frequency showing the distribution of the responses of prepatory students. The study results reveal that, most of the items are at the moderate level in terms of item facility. Besides, the results show that 28% of the items have a low item discrimination value. Finally, the frequency results were analyzed in terms of distractor efficiency and it has been found that some distractors in the exam are significantly ineffective and they should be revised.

Writing a research paper is one of the areas that ELT students have difficulty throughout their university education and future academic career. The aim of the present study is to investigate how ELT students tussle with research paper writing. Gender, research methods course and students' years of studying are chosen to be independent variables for this study. Data was collected through a survey questionnaire adapted fro m Köksal and Razı (2011) and conducted on 117 students studying English Language Teaching at Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, which is a state university in Burdur. The study results reveal that, students have problems most in lacking experience in scholarly writing, lack of critical reading skills, referencing and being talented or gifted. Also, the findings show that there is no significant difference between male and female students in terms of the writing difficulties they experience. Moreover, according to the results, there is no significant difference between students who took research methods/skills course and students who did not. The results did not reveal any significant difference with respect to the students' years of studying, either. Also, with respect to students' level of writing skills 1 Bu araştırmanın bir kısmı '2. Uluslararası Çağdaş Eğitim Araştırmaları Kongresi'nde sözlü bildiri olarak sunulmuştur

The aim of this study is to examine the multiple choice final exams administered to the 210 non-compulsory preparatory school students. The study aims to analyze the exams in terms of three characteristics: item facility, item discrimination and distractor efficiency. The study had quantitative research design and the data were analyzed through Paired Samples T-Test and frequency analysis. The results of the study revealed that most items in final exams had moderate difficulty levels for the students. However, almost all items in the exams had low discrimination indices and some items had negative discrimination values. Furthermore, the results show that one third of the items in the exams had at least one non-functional distractor. At the end of the study, some guidelines were presented for teachers and test developers to make the items more functional.