Content Validity And Response Validity Of Reading Comprehension In IELTS Academic Test

The IELTS Academic test is a globally recognized international English language standardization test for English learners whose mother tongue is not English.The test examines the four aspects of English Skill: listening,speaking,reading and writing.It is one of the necessary requirements for studying abroad or immigrating to English-speaking countries.The objects of the study are reading passages from Cambridge IELTS Real Exams13,14 and 16 published by Cambridge University Press and 20 senior 2 students.Through the research,the paper tries to answer the following three questions,so as to improve the quality of the test and to guide the practice of English teaching.1)In terms of content validity,what are the characteristics of text input in reading test of IELTS?2)In terms of content validity,what are the characteristics of expected answers in reading test of IELTS?3)What is the response validity of the reading test of IELTS?According to the framework of task characteristics proposed by Bachman and Palmer,and based on the actual research situation of the IELTS academic reading test,this research uses qualitative and quantitative analysis to assess the content validity in terms of text input(genre,subject,length,reading speed,and type of words)and expected answers;think aloud method is used to obtain the students’ answering process to verify response validity.Through research,the following conclusions are drawn: In terms of text input,the genres of the texts are relatively monotone,only involving explanatory and argumentative essays,and explanatory essays account for a large proportion;the subjects of the texts are relatively broad and academic,however it requires students to be equipped with more background knowledge since it is far away from the actual life of the students;the length of the article and the reading speed are stable;as far as the parts of speech in word-filling tasks,the test mainly focus on nouns.In addition,in terms of expected answers,the reading skills involved in the test are not comprehensive enough,neglecting to examine reading skill of inferring the meaning of words in context,but overemphasizing the acquisition of detailed information and the inspection of reasoning and judgment.The response validity is generally at a normal level;specifically,the response validity of detailed information and reasoning judgment is high,while the response validity of the main idea and article structure is low.This research also puts forward some suggestions for improving English reading teaching and reading test in response to the problems found in the research.Finally,some explanations are made on the deficiencies of this research and future research directions.