A Study of the Content Validity of TEM-4 Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension has been regarded as one of the most important skills in testing the proficiency of foreign language learners. Therefore, it is equally important to design the validity and proper reading comprehension questions.TEM-4 (Test for English Majors-4) is a standard test organized and supervised by the National Foreign Language Teaching Advisory Committee under the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education, P. R. China, which targets on the sophomores of English majors to test their language proficiency. This test has been obtaining more and more influence and recognition due to its rigorous testing method, coherent marking and scientific administration since its implementation in 1990. With regard to an English test, the reading comprehension proficiency has been regarded vital.Since 2005, some adjustments have been made in the aspects of composition and requirements in TEM-4 because of the amendment of The 2004 Test Syllabus for English Majors (elementary).For English majors, the ability to read efficiently is of vital importance. Therefore, this thesis was intended to explore the content validity of reading comprehension (RC)of TEM-4 from 2007 to 2009. This thesis adopts the framework proposed by Bachman and Palme (1996); and the framework is amended a little in accordance with the current situation of reading comprehension test. The new framework will examine the TEM-4 validity from the following aspects, in terms of input and expected responses respectively. The data rubrics are employing the papers from 2007 to 2009. The thesis aims to answer the following questions.◆What are the characteristics of input of TEM-4 reading part from 2007 to 2009?◆What are the characteristics of expected response of TEM-4 reading part from 2007 to 2009?◆What are the features that TEM-4 demonstrates in the three years from 2007 to 2009?It can be inferred from the research that the reading passages in these three years’paper perform high consistence with The 2004 Test Syllabus for TEM-4, the RC of TEM-4 and demonstrates significant correspondence with The 2004 Teaching Syllabus for TEM-4. To sum up, the research results live up well to the expectations of designers. However there are still some deficiencies can be seen in this thesis, 1) The paper is deficient in lacking the scores of the three papers’takers and thus it is less accurate to calculate F.V of each question. 2) The revised framework in this paper is not satisfactory enough and some other important parameters are not discussed with the limitation of the space of the paper. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one gives a general introduction of the research background and purpose. Chapter two is the theoretical concerns on language testing and literature review.Chapter three reviews the major issues in reading: nature of reading, components of reading processes and models of reading. Chapter four presents the content validity research of TEM-4 reading comprehension section and makes an analysis on gained results and a detailed discussion about the result as well. In the last chapter draws conclusions and the limitation of the current paper is also proposed.On the basis of The 2004 Test Syllabus for English Majors (elementary), it is found that the papers of the three years, namely 2007, 2008 and 2009 are highly valid in terms of content.