An Interface Study On EFL Students’ English Proficiency,FI/D Cognitive Style And Washback Of CET-4 Reading Comprehension Test

Washback, as the influence of a test on teaching and learning, has been concerned as an essential part in the field of language testing. Most of the studies on washback of exams concentrate on teachers and teaching rather than learners and learning. Furthermore, the studies focusing on tests’ washback on students are so general that neglect students’ individual characteristics. Individual difference is believed to partially explain testees’ differences of language test performance and it could also cause variety in washback. Therefore, the present study, selecting English proficiency and field cognitive styles as individual differences, aims to investigate the washback of CET-4 reading comprehension test(RCT) on students with different English proficiency and field independence/dependence(FI/D) through analyzing the relationships among washback of RCT, FI/D and English proficiency.In order to achieve the research purposes, 136 sophomores from an independent university are recruited to participate in the questionnaire survey and seven of them partake in group structured-interview. The findings of Correlation deny the correlation between FI/D and English proficiency. However, the results of Independent-Samples T-tests indicate that students with different English proficiency hold different perceptions on RCT in innovated CET-4 mainly in terms of difficulty, anxiety and learning content part, while washback of students with different field cognitive styles is only various in the significance of RCT. Another finding is that students of Field-independent Group contribute more differences in washback than those of Field-dependent Group. In addition, the study also shows that most of the students spend a large amount of time on RCT when they are preparing for CET-4.The results implicate that teachers should be aware of students’ individual differences. FD students should be encouraged to exploit more learning materials to enrich their learning content, while students with low English proficiency are advised to foster intrinsic motivation.