Could C-Test Be An Alternative To Mc Cloze?

Based on the advantages of C-testing over cloze claimed by Klein-Braley and Raatz (1984) and many other researchers' suspicions about the superiority of C-testing over cloze, this study presents a report, seeking to validate the C-test as a valid and reliable alternative to multiple-choice cloze amongst Chinese EFL learners.The study proposes to answer the following research questions:1. Which one gets higher reliability, multiple-choice cloze or C-test?2. Which one gets higher criterion-related validity, multiple-choice cloze or C-test?3. What attitudes do Chinese EFL learners hold towards C-test, namely, what about the face validity of C-test?4. Can C-test be an alternative to multiple-choice cloze?Materials for instrumentation comprised one multiple-choice cloze from the English Placement Test of Beijing Universities (2000) and one C-test adapted from four pieces of multiple-choice cloze in the English Placement Test of Beijing Universities (1997,1998,1999,2002).The research involved 60 first-year undergraduate students (Grade 2004) of Beijing Language and Culture University, 30 for each class. A questionnaire about their education background was analyzed. The C-test was scored for exact replacements.The reliability coefficient of the C-testing was computed by Cronbach's alpha. The reliability coefficient of the multiple-choice cloze was estimated by the Kuder-Richardson 20 (K-R 20).The result of End-term Exam (for the first semester of 2004-2005 school year ) was chosen as an outside criterion to get the criterion-related validity of the multiple-choice cloze and C-test. The End-term Exam was correlated with their English teacher's appraisal (which includes their performance in class, their assignments) to get its concurrent validity, the reliability of the End-term Exam was also computed by Cronbach's alpha. The result of a questionnaire adapted from Lado (1986) was analyzed to get the face validityAccording to the analysis, the reliability coefficients obtained for English C-test satisfy the minimum acceptable value of .80 (the developers' minimum acceptable coefficient), reaching a value of .8104, a bit larger than the reliability coefficient ofmultiple-choice cloze. The correlation coefficient between C-test and End-term Exam is .590, the correlation coefficient between multiple-choice cloze and End-term Exam is .474, over 0.1 lower than the correlation coefficient between C-test and End-term Exam. The value of criterion-related validity for C-test seems close enough to the level proposed by the test developers (.50). 59 percent of the subjects answered positively to the question "What do you think of this as a test of English ? ".To sum up, C-testing could be an alternative to multiple-choice cloze, especially for the achievement test or small-scale testing in Chinese context.