A Validity Study Of A College English Placement Test

This study is carried out primarily to investigate the validity of the placement test at Jiangxi Normal University through statistical analysis of the test data, and secondly to provide suggestions for the improvement of the test.In this thesis, validity of the placement test will be studied in terms of face validity, construct validity and content validity, so as to see if it reflects the English language performance of the test takers in the light of the test specifications. Quantitative and qualitative forms of data are gathered from test takers. All statistical analysis is performed using SPSS 11.0 and the software of paper analysis. Students'responses to the questionnaire are analyzed to look at the face validity of the test. Correlation study and factor analysis are conducted to test the construct validity. Logical analysis is used to evaluate the degree to which the test content represents the content domain. Discrimination Index and Facility Value of items are also calculated.The results of this study have demonstrated that the college English placement test is convincing. Responses to questionnaires show that this college English placement test is well-accepted by the students and they find it a useful test. Through correlation study and factor analysis, it can be concluded that the college English placement test has relatively high construct validity. The correlations between each subtest with another subtest are generally satisfactory. Factor analysis shows that the extracted factor in the test can be named as"knowledge of vocabulary", and it can explain general test format of this test. Analyses of the content validity also show generally satisfactory results. The contents of the test are basically in accordance with the test specification. The facility value of the placement test is large and the discrimination index of the test is comparatively low, which indicates that the test items of this placement test are easy to the students.In the end, the thesis puts forward several suggestions: the test of listening, writing and speaking should be included in the test; the item bank of the placement test needs to be enlarged to ensure the reliability and stability of the placement test.