Cohesion and Coherence in Written Texts of Students of Faculty of Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between Faculty of Education students’ levels of using cohesive devices and their skills in creating a consistent text. The document review technique, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was employed in the study. The “Cohesive Devices Evaluation Scale” was employed in determining the coherency factors in the students’ texts, and the “Paragraph Consistency Evaluation Scale” was employed in the evaluation of the consistency of the texts. The study was carried out at the Faculty of Education, Ahi Evran University in the 2014-2015 academic year. The students’ skills in using cohesive devices, elliptical narrative and conjunctive components are varies significantly depending on the department in which they are receiving their education. It is observed that there is a highly significant relationship between the length of the text and coherence and consistency. Again, it is observed that there is a significant relationship in a positive direction between consistency and coherence. A significant relationship at a low level between the students’ skills in creating a consistent text and references, elliptical narrative and substitution of the cohesive devices is also seen.