A Research On Content Validity Of Reading Comprehension In Jiangsu NMET(2018-2019)

Validity has always been regarded as the core criterion to measure the quality of a test and the basic starting point of a language test.It has been 15 years since the year of 2004 when Jiangsu province started to carry out the independent proposition of the English paper for the college entrance examination.In Jiangsu NMET paper,the score of the reading comprehension is 30 points,accounting for 25% of the total score.It is obvious that the validity of reading test questions affects the whole validity of the test paper directly.Based on the Bachman & Palmer’s framework of task characteristics,this thesis analyzes the content validity of the reading comprehension in Jiangsu NMET from 2018-2019 according to the Nationwide Unified Testing Syllabus of Ordinary Institutions’ Enrollment(this would be simplified as Testing Syllabus),the Nationwide Unified Testing Instructions of Ordinary Institutions’ Enrollment of Jiangsu(this would be simplified as Testing Instructions),National English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(this would be simplified as NECS),English Teaching Syllabus for Full Time Senior High School(this would be simplified as Teaching Syllabus).The analyses are made from two aspects,namely,characteristics of the input and the expected response.The characteristics of the input are topic,genre,length,reading speed,new words and readability.The expected response is mainly analyzed from two aspects: the types of response and the investigation of reading skills.The purpose is to test the content validity of the reading comprehension and figure out whether it meets the requirements of relevant documents.In addition,in order to know the change rule of the content validity of the reading comprehension in Jiangsu NMET before and after the in English promulgation of the new NECS in 2018 through the differences,the author’s research results are compared with the previous results.The research is to explore the following questions:(1)What is the content validity of English reading comprehension in Jiangsu NMET from 2018 to 2019? Does it meet the requirements of Testing Syllabus,Testing Instructions,Teaching Syllabus and the new NECS? What are the characteristics and deficiencies of it?(2)What are the differences on content validity of the reading comprehension in Jiangsu NMET before and after the promulgation of the new NECS in 2018? What is the change rule of it?Through analysis and discussion,it comes to the following conclusions:(1)In these two years,the reading comprehension of Jiangsu NMET basically meets the requirements of Testing Syllabus,Testing Instructions,Teaching Syllabus and the new NECS,with diversified genres,rich topics and moderate difficulty,focusing on discourse and striving for stability.So it has high content validity.However,there are still some deficiencies in length,response type and reading skills.For example,the length of passage A is too short while that of passage D is too long;the response type is not various and the reading skill of understanding the logical structure of the passage is ignored.(2)The comparison with the previous research results shows that the change of content validity in Jiangsu NMET reading comprehension before and after the promulgation of the new NECS is not obvious,with high content validity but slightly different in topic,length and reading speed.For example,after the promulgation of the new NECS,the topic distribution of the passage is more balanced,but the length of passage A is less reasonable.In addition,the requirements on reading speed of the examinees are lowered.In view of these conclusions,the author puts forward some suggestions from the aspects of future’s Jiangsu NMET reading test proposition and senior high school English reading teaching in Jiangsu.Suggestions for future’s Jiangsu NMET reading test proposition:(1)The length of the passage A and passage D should be properly controlled;(2)The response types should be increased such as short answer questions and gap-filling questions,etc.(3)Questions to test the reading skill of understanding the logical structure of the passage should be increased.Suggestions for senior high school English reading teaching in Jiangsu:(1)Teachers need to choose reading materials with moderate difficulty,guiding students to read widely and be familiar with various topics and genres;(2)Teachers need to improve students’ discourse reading abilities,especially to strengthen the training of reading speed and reading skills.