A Study on the Quality of Achievement Test Paper of Junior English英语专业毕业论文.doc

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1、A Study on the Quality of Achievement Test Paper of Junior English内容：Abstract: Based on the theory of Bachman & Palmers English language testing theory, this paper aims at analyzing the quality of achievement test papers of Grade8 junior English from the perspective of test validity and reliability.

2、 Then, it will make a further detail analysis about Reading Comprehension and propose some suggestions to improve this part.Keywords: Junior English Testing, test validity, reliability1. IntroductionEnglish language testing is one of the major parts in English teaching and a measurement of education

3、, which assesses the language ability and knowledge according to the result. Thus, English tests have been considered as an assessment mechanism that stimulates the students to achieve more in English and obtain higher scores as well as help the teacher better evaluate the students achievements in E

4、nglish. The author chooses the terminal test papers of junior English as its object of study and probes into analyzing the test validity and reliability of the test paper. The detail analyses are displayed as follows.2. Analysis of the Quality of Test PaperWhen designing a test, the quality of test

5、is one of the most important issues that the teacher must pay more attention to. According to Bachman & Palmer (1999), the criteria for evaluating the quality of a test mainly include the five aspects such as reliability, validity, authenticity, interactiveness and impact. These five aspects are clo

6、sely related to junior English teaching, and is also the key point of this paper. In this paper, the author is intended to analyze the validity and reliability of this terminal achievement test paper for Grade8 Junior English.2.1. Content of the Test PaperThe whole test consists of five parts: liste

7、ning comprehension, which occupies 20% of the total score. Listening Comprehension consists of three parts, Sentence Listening, Dialogue Listening and Passage Listening; Multiple Choice Question, which occupies 15% of the total score; Cloze, 10%; Reading Comprehension, 30%; Task-based Reading, 10%;

8、and the last part, writing, which occupies 15% of the total score.2.2. Reliability EstimateReliability is the extent to which test scores are consistent: a quality assessing whether candidates can get the same results on different dates (assuming there is no change in their ability). Reliability is

9、a property of the test as a measuring instrument, but is also relative to the candidates taking the test: a test may be reliable with one population, but not with another. And next the author will make estimation about this test paper utilizing the instrument-SPSS.The following is the descriptive st

10、atistics of the results of the terminal junior test paper.Graph1 统计量LCMCQClozeRCTBRWritingTSN有效40404040404040缺失0000000均值13.909.954.3025.004.505.8863.50中值14.009.504.0028.005.006.0066.50众数1793286待添加的隐藏文字内容1867标准差3.4772.8642.2896.4213.2263.61814.915方差12.0928.2035.24141.23110.41013.087222.462偏度-.605-.71

11、2.164-1.840-.005.045-.916偏度的标准误.374.374.374.374.374.374.374峰度-.532.302-1.1052.720-1.203-.903.728峰度的标准误.733.733.733.733.733.733.733极小值63160024极大值1915830101387Where: LC=Listening Comprehension, MCQ=Multiple Choice Question, RC=Reading Comprehension, TBR=Task-based Reading, TS=Total Score.And the follo

12、wing one is the normal distribution of the students total scores:Graph2From the value of skewness and kurtosis, and the normal distribution of the total score, it can be discovered that the test scores are normally distributed. From the graph, it can be seen that the skewness is -0.916 and kurtosis

13、0.728, according to the English language testing theory, values for skewness and kurtosis of between -2 and+2 indicate a reasonable normal distribution. That is to say, the data of this paper is reliable. And the standard deviation of this test paper is 14.915, which indicates that the discriminatio

14、n of students scores is big. Therefore, we can say that the test results are reliable and can reflect test takers language ability and are also the basis for guarantee the whole test papers validity. However, the mean of the fourth part (Reading Comprehension) is 25point, whose total score is 30 poi

15、nt, and the highest score is 30 point, the lowest one is 6 point. It is because most of the students are familiar with the material of the selected articles in the fourth part. The kurtosis of RC is 2.720, it is a positive kurtosis and indicates that this part is a little easy, and the discriminatio

16、n of students score is small. The detail analysis of this part will be analyzed later. 2.3. Validity Analysis Briefly, the validity of a test is the extent to which it measures what it is supposed to measure and nothing else. Every test, whether it is a short, informal classroom test or a public exa

17、mination, should be as valid as the constructor can make it (Heaton, 2000). There are several measures examining validity of a test such as face validity, content validity, concurrent validity, predicative validity, response validity and construct validity.The following graph shows the correlation c

18、oefficients among different parts as well as between each part and the total score of this test paper. Graph3相关性LCMCQClozeRCTBRWritingTSLCPearson 相关性1.453*.291.485*.644*.476*.829*显著性（双侧）.003.069.002.000.002.000N40404040404040MCQPearson 相关性.453*1.284.346*.158-.105.497*显著性（双侧）.003.076.029.330.521.001N

19、40404040404040ClozePearson 相关性.291.2841.391*.181-.020.475*显著性（双侧）.069.076.013.265.902.002N40404040404040RCPearson 相关性.485*.346*.391*1.248.363*.813*显著性（双侧）.002.029.013.124.021.000N40404040404040TBRPearson 相关性.644*.158.181.2481.515*.656*显著性（双侧）.000.330.265.124.001.000N40404040404040WritingPearson 相关性.

20、476*-.105-.020.363*.515*1.600*显著性（双侧）.002.521.902.021.001.000N40404040404040TSPearson 相关性.829*.497*.475*.813*.656*.600*1显著性（双侧）.000.001.002.000.000.000N40404040404040*. 在 .01 水平（双侧）上显著相关。*. 在 0.05 水平（双侧）上显著相关。According to Ferguson (2006), the correlation coefficients between each part and total scor

21、e should be higher than 0.7 and the correlation between parts should be 0.30.6. The above graph shows that the part-total correlation coefficients of the test paper is not very satisfactory, only the correlation coefficients between reading comprehension or listening comprehension and the total scor

22、e are above 0.7. What more, the correlation coefficients between parts is not satisfied with the standard of 0.3-0.6, which indicates that the construct validity of this test paper is very low. 3. Detail Analysis about Reading ComprehensionThis part consists of three passages, the first passage is j

23、ust an introduction about the American Museum of National History, the second one is a brief introduction about Tea, and the third one is about the celebrity Li Shizhen. The total score of this part is 30 point, which occupies 30% of the total score. 3.1. Data CollectionIn this paper, the author has

24、 selected 40 students as its object of study, which can guarantee the validity of the data in order that the further analysis can be carried out on the basis of these dates.Graph4RC频率百分比有效百分比累积百分比有效625.05.05.01012.52.57.51637.57.515.02025.05.020.02212.52.522.52412.52.525.026717.517.542.5281435.035.0

25、77.530922.522.5100.0合计40100.0100.03.2. Reliability AnalysisThe following graph is the descriptive statistics of the results of the part of reading comprehension. Graph5统计量RCN有效40缺失0均值25.00中值28.00众数28标准差6.421方差41.231偏度-1.840偏度的标准误.374峰度2.720峰度的标准误.733极小值6极大值30From the above graph, it can be easily se

26、en that, the medium, mode and mean is 28.00, 28, and 25.00. According to the above introduction, it is known to us all that the total score of reading comprehension is 30 point, therefore, the medium, mode and mean is very high. The skewnes of this part is -1.840 and the kurtosis 2.720. However, onl

27、y if the values of skewness and kurtosis are between -2 and +2, which can indicate a normal distribution. Whats more, the standard deviation is 6.421 indicating that the discrimination of students score is low. And it can also be inferred from the following graph6- the normal distribution of reading

28、 comprehension.Graph6There are four variants of normal distribution, in terms of skewness, it can be classified into positively skewed distribution and negatively skewed distribution. The former one indicates that there are more scores below the mean and the test or the part is difficult, the latter

29、 one indicates that there are more scores above the mean and the test or the part is easy. And another two types are classified in terms of kurtosis, it can be classified into negative kurtosis and positive kurtosis. The former one indicates that the discrimination of students score is big while the

30、 latter one indicates that the discrimination of students score is small. From the graph4, graph5 and graph6, it is clearly seen that 75% of the scores of RC part is above the mean 25.00, the skewness is -1.840, approximating to -2 and the normal distribution is a negatively skewed one. All the evid

31、ences indicate that the Reading Comprehension part is easy; the discrimination of students score in this part is small.3.3. The Detail Analysis of Reading ComprehensionThis part consists of three passages. Lets take one of the passages for example:Passage AThe American Museum of National HistoryAddr

32、ess: Central Park Westside 70th St., New YorkTelephone number: 212222-3500Traffic: You can get there by bus, subway or car.Parking: There is a small parking lot (停车场). You have to pay $7.75 per day, but it is often full. Parking in the neighborhood is also limited (有限的).Open hours: 10:00am - 5:45pm

33、(Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday)10:00am - 9:00 pm (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday)The museum is open every day of the year except Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day.Ticket Price: $3.20 for grown-ups, one-fourth (四分之一) for children, and free on Friday and Saturday evening from 5:00 pm to 9:00

34、pm.46. The American Museum of National History is in_.A. Florida B. Washington C. Boston D. New York47. You can reach the American Museum of National History_A. by bus, train, or air B. by bus, subway, or car C. by bus, train, or ship D. by bus, subway, or shipIt is clearly seen that this passage is

35、 easy, and the students can easily obtain some important and useful information directly from this passage. For example, the stem No.46 is just a question searching for the address of The American Museum of National History. It is easy for students to find the answer in the first line of this passag

36、e. Whats more, the design of the four options is very easy. It is the same case with the stem No. 47.And the following two passages in this part are also easy to understand. Thats the reason why the kurtosis of this part exceeded the normal range of kurtosis (-22).In order to raise the validity of t

37、his part and improve the quality of junior English test paper, some suggestions are proposed in this paper as follows:In terms of selecting article, this part should include diversified kinds of articles, such as some easy economic, political articles and literary works. On one hand, it can reflect

38、the requirements of the test and on the other hand, it can raise the discrimination degree of this part. Consequently, it can test most of the students real English proficiency.Whats more, when designing the options of every stem, first, some of the stems should not always be direct but can be techn

39、ically designed; second, the options must include some distractions, and the distractions must be reasonable. Thus, it can raise the discrimination degree of this part and improve the validity of this part.4. ConclusionThis paper carries out a study on the validity of the test paper for Grade8 junio

40、r English and also proposes some suggestions for improving the quality of junior English test paper. English test is independent to English teaching, and the reflection of the students English language proficiency. A test of good quality can not only reach the goal of evaluating the students achieve

41、ments in English but also testing the effects of English teaching. Teachers can adjust their teaching strategies and methods according to the result of the tests. It is concluded that teachers should make every possible effort to ensure test quality so as to minimize the risk of making wrong decisio

42、ns in junior English teaching.ReferenceBachman, Lyle F. & Palmer, Adrian S. Language Testing in PracticeM. 上海：上海外语教育出版社, 1999.Ferguson, G. Handout: Lecture on the validity and validation. Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 2006.Heaton, J.B. Writing English Language Tests. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000.桂诗春语言测试：新技术与新理论J. 外语教学与研究，1989.孔德惠英语测试学M. 长春：东北师人出版社，2000.李绍山语言测试的反拨作用与语言测试设计J. 外语界，2005.刘宝全，席仲恩SPSS在英语试卷统计分析中的应用J. 外语电化教学，2004.沈齐齐测试与英语教学J. 外语界，1994.邹申语言测试M上海：上海外语出版社，2005.