Development of the Turkish author recognition task (TART) and the Turkish vocabulary size test (TurVoST)

Abstract

This article reports the development of two novel research tools for Turkish, the Turkish Author Recognition Task (TART) and the Turkish Vocabulary Size Test (TurVoST). Such tools have been readily available for English, Spanish, Korean, Dutch and Chinese but not for Turkish. These tools help researchers to identify the print exposure levels of L1 speakers and an approximation of L1 speakers’ receptive vocabulary knowledge, respectively. Measuring print exposure is important as it is an important driver of L1 development from a usage-based perspective (e.g., Dąbrowska in Cognition 178:222–235, 2018), which influences vocabulary, gram- mar, and collocation knowledge. The findings show that the TART and TurVoST are significantly correlated at 0.47 and the TART accounts for almost 18% of the variance in vocabulary knowledge. Reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) scores were found to be 0.99 and 0.74 for two tests respectively. In light of similar previous studies of various ARTs and vocabulary size tests, the TART and the TurVoST are found to be reliable research instruments with correlations and reliability scores within the range of what has been reported in the literature. Potential uses of these two instruments are discussed. All data, R codes, and research instruments are publicly avail- able at https://osf.io/u6t8m/?view_only=63cf706c381a4214950984dae5470df6.