| Since 1998, the Higher Specialty and Vocational Education has got a rapid development in China. With the promulgation of the revised English teaching syllabus, a widely English teaching reform has been carried out in higher specialty and vocational colleges. And English test, as an essential part of English teaching, directly represents the achievements of the teaching reform. Therefore, it is an important aspect to evaluate the achievements of the English teaching reform by assessing the English testing.Practical English Test for Colleges (PRETCO), the national standard test for non-English majors in higher vocational and technical colleges, was formally implemented nationwide in 2000. Up to now, PRETCO, implemented in more than 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, has been increasingly recognized in China. On the basis of the teaching syllabus—Higher Vocational and Specialty Education English Curriculum Requirements (short for "the Basic Curriculum Requirements"), this test tests language knowledge also focuses on testing language skills; it tests both general language content and foreign-related business content, and the emphasis is laid on the latter with a percentage of 60% of practical content. Because of its scientific measurement, strict invigilation and reliable scores, it has already become one of the criteria for judging English teaching and learning of higher vocational and technical education in China. It has achieved the aim to promote the English teaching reform which is characterized by "the priority to practicality, the aim at application" in higher vocational and technical colleges.For college students, possessing a good reading ability is the effective way to acquire knowledge and is vital to the achievement in all academic subjects. Thus, reading is a vital skill which is always emphasized in language teaching and learning. Correspondingly, reading comprehension takes a large proportion in large-scale tests, such as NMET, CET, TEM, etc., and PRETCO is without exception. Accordingly, a valid, reliable, authentic and practical reading comprehension testing is of great demand, and guaranteeing its validity is of critical importance in foreign language tests. Therefore, considering the great influence of the national public PRETCO test, this thesis attempts to assess the content validity of reading part of PRETCO-B so as to obtain some insight about the present reading instruction and to get useful feedback to testing construction of reading comprehension for English teaching program in colleges.The validity study of the PRETCO reading part is carried out by means of analyzing testing content and doing an interview with experienced English teachers. And this paper concentrates on two major aspects:the analysis of the input characteristics of reading materials is conducted, like text length, new words, readability, topic and genre, etc.; on the other hand, the exploration of the expected responses (i.e. the analysis of the question types and the coverage of reading skills) is carried out according to a revised test task characteristics framework from Bachman & Palmer. Besides Bachman & Palmer's theoretical framework, the analysis and discussion of these two aspects are also based on the Basic Curriculum Requirements and the Testing Syllabus. An interview with experienced English teachers is done to record their opinions on content validity of reading part of PRETCO-B. Then a comparison between the teachers'opinions and the data of test paper analysis was made for the sake of making a more persuasive conclusion.Compared with the two syllabi, the findings of this study show that high consistency exists in the respects of new words, readability, topic and genre in reading comprehension of PRETCO-B. In addition, the reading skills coverage is in compliance with the stipulation of the Basic Curriculum Requirements and the Testing Syllabus, and the results of interview are similar to those of paper analysis. However, text length and speed fail to meet the requirements set in the Basic Curriculum Requirements and the Testing Syllabus, and these problems can not be overlooked.At the end of the thesis, some corresponding suggestions are generated for the reading test design as well as the English instruction and learning in the vocational and technical colleges. |
