On The Washback Of Different Test Formats Of NMET

The discussion about the influence or effect of testing on teaching and learning, technically termed as washback or backwash, emerged as early as 1980s in the field of general education. It was not long before some applied linguists were strongly attracted by this phenomenon. However, the systematic exploration into washback in language education was not conducted until 1990s, most of which focused on teaching. In China, the empirical studies of washback were targeted mainly on some large-scale or high-stakes tests, such as CET and TEM. Few scholars, except Li Xiaoju and Qi Luxia, engaged in the washback research on NMET.With the increasingly fast pace of curriculum reform as well as the issue and implementation of New National English Curriculum Standards for Senior Secondary Education, some great changes have taken place in NMET as well. Besides those designed by the Ministry of Education Examination Center, a certain number of test papers are also developed independently by different provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities directly under the Central Government, which thus produce a variety of test formats.Aiming at exploring the washback of different test formats of NMET on students' EFL learning in terms of their learning motivations, strategies, content and choice of learning materials as well as their views on the test formats of NMET, interviews and a questionnaire survey were conducted among 297 freshmen randomly selected at Shaanxi Normal University,12 of whom participated in the interviews and 285 of whom participated in the questionnaire survey.Based on the data analysis, the findings of this study are presented as follows:(1) Large-scale examinations may have certain influence on the students'learning motivations in that quite a large number of students learn English for the purpose of preparing for large-scale examinations.(2) The emphasized learning content and the most popular learning materials in senior secondary schools usually relate to what are added more weights to in NMET.(3) Students tend to adopt positive learning strategies towards what are mostly checked in NMET. (4) The achievement test papers used in senior secondary schools more often than not share lots of similarities with NMET.(5) Some innovative item types as well as some traditional ones are very popular with many students. Subjective items are considered to be not enough in NMET.Such conclusions can be reached after a discussion that the difference in students' learning motivations, strategies, content and choice of learning materials may relate partly to various formats of NMET. However, owing to the complexity of washback as well as the insufficient sampling, the findings of the study may lack of applicability to other contexts.Finally, some recommendations are provided, such as including more subjective tasks, adding more weight to productive tasks, and popularizing some innovative test formats in NMET.