Abstract:

The purpose of the present study is to classify and evaluate the graduate dissertations on teaching Turkish as a foreign language prepared between 1981and 2012 according to their types, topics, the years they were done, the language skills and the methodology used in them. The database of YOK National Dissertation Center was substantially used so as to gather the data. However, beside this database, dissertation centers of the universities and previous studies on this topic were also referred. During the study, dissertation review was concentrated specifically on the concept of “teaching Turkish to foreigners”. According to the review results 147 graduate dissertations (125 MA thesis and 22 Ph.D. dissertations) were found. The coding of these dissertations was done via computer by the researcher. In order to assure the coding reliability, the coding was checked by two experts in the field. During the coding process each dissertation was coded only once. Nevertheless, while evaluating the topics, dissertations related to more than one category were evaluated and coded separately for each subcategory. In the light of the results, some suggestions were given for the experts and researchers studying in the field.

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