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Bahçeşehir School Readiness Test
In line with the new education law, and with the aim of providing parents, who will enroll their children in first grade one year earlier, with scientific data at the critical point of school starting age and guiding them accurately, the "Bahçeşehir School Readiness Test" has been developed for the first time in Türkiye by Turkish academics at the initiative of Bahçeşehir Colleges, in accordance with the new curriculum.
The Bahçeşehir School Readiness Test (BOHT) was designed by an expert team led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Selçuk Şirin of New York University, who has developed numerous tests included in the scientific literature, to measure how academically ready children aged 60-66 months are for school.
The BOHT was developed by a multidisciplinary team. The team includes Assoc. Prof. Dr. Selçuk Şirin, faculty member in Applied Psychology at New York University; Preschool Education Specialist Dr. Tülin Güler of Hacettepe University; Preschool Education Specialist Dr. Refika Olgan of METU; and Psychologist Demet Köklü, Preschool Education Practitioner and School Principal at Bahçeşehir College.
THE TEST IS FREE
The Bahçeşehir School Readiness Test, which will be administered by appointment at all Bahçeşehir College kindergartens and primary schools across Türkiye's 7 regions,will be available free of charge this year to all children aged 60-66 months. To make the test available to a wider audience, the Guidance Services of Uğur Dershaneleri will provide support. Students will be able to take the test at many locations across Anatolia, particularly at all branches in Istanbul.
Speaking at the press conference, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Selçuk Şirin, who led the academic team that developed the test, said, "One of the most important features that distinguishes BOHT from other tests on the market is that it has been developed entirely based on the realities of Turkish society and the education system, taking into account the latest changes in the Turkish education system ." Assoc. Prof. Dr. Selçuk Şirin stated that the test includes questions on the areas recommended for primary school readiness in the education program for children aged 36-72 months: "visual perception (hand-eye coordination, figure-ground discrimination, shape constancy, position in space, spatial relations), auditory perception (listening, speaking, distinguishing sounds, matching sounds with objects or pictures of objects), attention and memory, basic concepts, problem solving, fine motor skills (drawing, coloring, cutting, folding, kneading...), and self-care skills." He said that the visual materials on which the test is based have an aesthetic colorfulness that the new generation of children, who are familiar with computers and television, can easily relate to, and that, considering that many other existing tests are printed in black and white on photocopy paper, BOHT, with its colorful, tactile design, can measure children's level of school readiness without boring them or unnecessarily increasing test anxiety.
TEST RELIABILITY CONFIRMED
Bahçeşehir College Primary School Principal and Psychologist Demet Köklü emphasized that during the test development process, both through pilot studies at Bahçeşehir College and expert opinions, the validity of the test questions was ensured and the reliability of the test was confirmed. She said that by having the test administered to the same child by two different practitioners at Bahçeşehir College, the reliability of the test was determined to be 89%.
Bahçeşehir College Primary School Principal and Psychologist Demet Köklü stated that since 2007 they have been providing preschool and primary education in flexible classroom environments through the Personalized Learning Model they implement, and that with the school starting age being moved one year earlier under the new education system, they have further enriched their classroom environments under the academic consultancy of Child Development Specialist Prof. Dr. Cynthia Garcia Coll of Brown University, introducing students to different learning corners such as science, art, drama and mathematics. Emphasizing that they prepared thoroughly for the new education system throughout the summer, Demet Köklü said that they opened a Summer School in June and July for children who had completed 60 months to prepare for first grade, organized seminars titled "My Child Is Starting School" to raise parents' awareness, prepared a curriculum specifically for 5-year-olds together with a group of academics from Bahçeşehir Colleges, New York University, the University of Virginia and Bahçeşehir University, and provided teachers with an intensive in-service training program.
Students aged 60-66 months who took the Bahçeşehir School Readiness Test and their parents also attended the press conference. In their statements, the parents said that they initially had doubts about sending their children to first grade, but that a scientifically based test such as the Bahçeşehir School Readiness Test greatly helped them in their decision-making process; they said they had learned about their children's academic readiness from the test results and would confidently send their children to first grade.
WHO IS SELÇUK ŞİRİN?
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Selçuk Şirin teaches research methods and statistics at New York University (NYU) and conducts scientific studies in a wide range of fields, from education to politics, at the NYU-Şirin Research Center, which has a budget of over 1 million dollars. Dr. Şirin received his undergraduate degree from METU, his master's degree from SUNY-Albany and his PhD from Boston College, and has received the Boston College Best Teacher Award, the US Child Development Foundation Young Researcher of the Year Award and, from one of the world's largest research associations, the AERA 2006 Research Award. Dr. Şirin has developed numerous tests that have entered the international literature.
