An Empirical Study On Involving Gap-filling Test In EFL Classroom Tests

Since language testing developed into its scientific era in the 1960s, applied linguists and test specialists have done much to prompt it more rational and scientific. However, most of the studies have focused on large-scale and far-reaching standardized tests. Few, if any, studies have probed the reliability and validity of teachers' self-designed classroom tests, not to mention the specific test formats used. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the feasibility of integrative task in the classroom tests theoretically and empirically, trying to explore the reliability and validity of the self-designed quiz and final achievement test with different test format (half-subjective pattern, exactly the gap-filling) employed.Above all, the thesis explored the theoretical possibility of involving gap-filling in classroom tests. Gap-filling is one of the varieties of cloze. Cloze, invented by Taylor (1953) as readability test of native speakers, was later taken as typical integrative task by Carroll (1961) and Oiler (1979) and incorporated into various EFL (English as a Foreign Language) tests. The applications of cloze to classroom tests were reviewed and the four main varieties were furtherly dealt with in terms of their strengths and weaknesses when they were applied to classroom tests. In addition, studies on classroom tests were also reviewed to find cut-in point for incorporating the integrative task into the classroom tests.One class of 39 university sophomores participated in the study. As classroom tests include the informal quiz and the formal achievement test, this study was accordingly conducted in two sections. In the first section, gap-filling was taken as one means of quiz. Each unit of comprehensive course being finished, there was a summary gap-filling quiz administered. After the fifth quiz, the small-scale protocol data were collected and qualitatively analyzed. The results not only reflected students' degree of comprehension of the original text, but also validated the gap-filling quiz as...