Research On Evaluation Of Critical Thinking In The Modern Chinese Reading Tests In Senior High School Entrance Examination

Critical thinking,a common core around the world,is an important educational goal in the 21st century.How to develop and assess students' critical thinking in modern reading has been good concerned in the field of education.At present,studies on the assessment of modern reading in Chinese language exams lack systematic assessment and in-depth analysis of students' critical thinking.Therefore,what kind of critical thinking is assessed in the Chinese modern reading propositions?In order to analyze what kind of critical thinking is tested in modern reading propositions in the Chinese language exams and how it changes with genre,region,and period,this study reviews the analytical framework of critical thinking based on the perspective of critical thinking.Then,appropriate propositions from the critical thinking test and the modern reading tests are extracted and adapted.A critical thinking analysis tool for the modern reading test in the Chinese language is constructed.Next,the reliability of the tool is improved and verified through analyst training,expert review,cognitive interviews,and pre-analysis of reading propositions.Finally,textual and statistical analyses are conducted on the results of the modern reading sample in the Chinese language examinations.The main conclusions are as follows.Firstly,since 2017,the Chinese language modern reading propositions tend to test such abilities as the ability to encode meaning,to explain the results,to ask questions,categorization,argument confirmation,and to guess alternative solutions are missing.In addition,meaning coding,meaning clarification,argument analysis,and derived conclusion indicators tend to test students' critical thinking by means of direct tests,while propositional assessment,stated outcome indicators,and proof process indicators tend to test students' critical thinking by means of indirect tests.Secondly,controlling the regional factors,narrative readers tested meaning coding indicators more frequently than argumentative readers and expository readers,less frequently than argumentative readers,less frequently than expository readers for opinion detection and proposition assessment,and more frequently than expository readers for outcome indicators.Controlling the genre factor,the frequency of tests on meaning coding indicators is significantly higher in the eastern and western regions than in the central region,and the frequency of tests on argument analysis indicators is significantly lower than in the central region;the frequency of tests on results indicators is significantly higher in the eastern region than in the central region.Thirdly,the frequency of examinations on meaning coding,opinion detection,argument confirmation,proposition assessment,argument assessment,argument checking,proof process and making arguments indicators in modern reading propositions in mainland is significantly less than those in PISA 2018 or Hong Kong reading tests.There was no significant difference in the frequency of testing critical thinking overall and on different indicators in modern reading propositions from one region to another during the different curriculum reform periods,but there was an effect on the testing of critical thinking in different genres.In 2003,essay reading propositions tested critical thinking argumentative analysis significantly more frequently than narrative and expository reading propositions;in 2014,essay reading propositions tested critical thinking perspective detection indicators significantly less frequently than expository reading propositions,and essay reading propositions tested critical thinking argumentative analysis indicators significantly more frequently than narrative and expository reading propositions.This indicates that in the process of curriculum reform,the level of critical thinking tests in reading propositions in the eastern,central and western regions has developed more evenly,but the development of critical thinking core literacy has not been implemented in the test.