435 / 2020-02-29 01:28:54

阅读理解考试与中国英语能力等级量表的对接效度研究 ---以校本英语水平考试为例 The Validation of Aligning Reading Comprehension with China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE): A Case Study on School-based English Proficiency Test

阅读理解，校本英语水平考试，中国英语能力等级量表，标准设定，效度验证,Reading Comprehension, School-based English Proficiency Tests, CSE, Standard Setting, Validation

语言评估与测试 > 语言评估与测试

China’s Standards of English Language Ability was put forward in 2018, providing an objective, stable and relatively unified description of English proficiency. As a yardstick, CSE will play an important role in the connection and positioning of various English tests at home and abroad, so the study on aligning various English tests with CSE is necessary, which will become a hot topic in recent years. The relevant aligning projects in the past usually referred to Manual for Relating Language Examination to CEFR, but it’s incipient to apply the methodology in the manual to CSE, which needs to be further explored and verified. In addition, the aligning studies will also contribute to the further revision of CSE, which is also the key point of researches since CSE’s first proposed. Therefore, to position the school-based English proficiency test according to CSE and to provide experience and evidence for the subsequent series of CSE aligning researches, this paper aims to report on a research aligning the reading part of a school-based English proficiency test with CSE, as well as the reflections on the entire aligning process.

This school-based English proficiency test is a high-stake test, which checks students' ability to master and use English and undergraduates of all majors (except English) cannot get degree certificate if not passing the examination. The reading part consists of two essays (followed by 20 multiple-choice questions) and one cloze (choose right answers from 15 options to fill in 10 blanks).

This study was conducted under the guidance of the suggested procedures and approaches set out in Manual for Relating Language Examination to CEFR, including four steps—familiarization, specification, standard setting and validation, and was optimized according to the previous relevant aligning researches. In the standard setting stage, Basket Method and Modified Angoff Method were used respectively to judge the test’s CSE level, each conducted two rounds, and then were further compared and analyzed. Also, this study discussed the influencing factors of panelists’ judgments (panelists’ discussion; the provision of the examinee's actual accuracy on each item), and verified the importance of the organizational competence scale in CSE in the aligning process. In addition, this study paid close attention to the validation part, including procedural, internal and external validation.

Finally, combined with the questionnaire survey and interviews and using some software such as SPSS and Facets for data analysis, the study found that the reading part of this school-based English proficiency test matched Level 5 in CSE, and offered suggestions on CSE’s aligning studies. On the one hand, this study is instructive in English testing, especially in English teaching and learning; on the other hand, it is helpful for the further revision of CSE and provides some evidence for the optimization of aligning methods in subsequent studies.