Beyond Proficiency Testing: Ideological Work in High-Stakes Language Assessment in Turkey

Coding data, documentation and analysis code for a study of the reading passages used in Turkey's Foreign Language Examination (Yabancı Dil Bilgisi Seviye Tespit Sınavı, YDS) between 2013 and 2023. The corpus comprises the complete population of 115 passages from 23 examination sessions, transcribed from the official question booklets published by ÖSYM. The deposit contains the coded corpus with both coding rounds, an intracoder reliability summary and a full adjudication record (YDS_Corpus_Coding_115.xlsx), the written coding scheme (YDS_Coding_Scheme.docx), a reproducible analysis script (analysis.py), its output (results.pdf) and full documentation (README.pdf). This version supersedes earlier versions of the deposit. The corpus was extended from 110 to 115 passages following the identification of one omitted session, the disciplinary classification was re-examined against the source passages, the thematic coding was carried out across the full corpus, and a second coding round was added with a complete adjudication record. Figures in earlier versions should not be used. The examination booklets themselves are not redistributed. They are the property of ÖSYM and are publicly released after each administration; every passage in the coding file is identified by year, session and question range so that it can be located in the official source. The CC BY 4.0 licence covers the deposited coding data, documentation and code only.