A Study of the Content Validity of Reading Comprehension Tests in NMET II

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Liu, Zhen-Jie & Jin, Ming-Hao. (2018). A study of the content validity of reading comprehension tests in NMET II. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 26(4), 103-124. Based on Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) framework of task characteristics, this paper aims to compare the reading comprehension tests of the 2013-2017 National Matriculation English Test II (NMET II) with the requirements of the New Curriculum Standards and Testing Syllabus, in particular, concerning the content validity of the tests in terms of the characteristics of input and expected responses. The implications of this study are discussed for test designers, teachers, and students. The results show that reading comprehension tests from 2013 to 2017 basically meet the requirements of the New Curriculum Standard and Testing Syllabus and have a high content validity. In terms of the characteristics of input, the length, reading speed, and readability of comprehension passages are appropriate for students; however, the distribution of topics and genres in each year is uneven. In terms of the characteristics of expected responses, the wordings of questions and the design of question items are reasonable. However, the response type is mainly restricted to selected response questions (multiple-choice), and the measure of reading skills coverage is unbalanced.

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