A Comparative Study On The Validity Of Two Types Of Cloze Test In CET4

Cloze has been widely used in many large-scale language tests in China. As an integrative test, it is applied to measure test-takers’overall language proficiency. Besides the original separate item MC cloze, there is a new cloze test, banked cloze, in the reading comprehension of the revised College English Test Band4(CET4). Cloze test was originally designed and used in western countries and has being widely used in China. However, very few researches on the cloze tests have been done, and empirical researches on the two types of cloze tests in CET4are comparatively fewer in China. Therefore, a comparative study on the validity of two types of cloze test in CET4has its necessity and is of practical significance.Two research questions are used in the study:1) Are there any variations in validities of separate item MC cloze and banked cloze which are adapted from the same passage with the same deletion places?2) Are there any significant differences existed in test-takers’performances when different cloze formats are utilized?Two cloze test passages in this study were chosen from CET4in January and December,2002. Altogether100sophomores were selected at random from Xi’an Peihua University. Two groups of subjects (50subjects per group) were administrated to finish cloze Test A and Test B respectively, with the attached questionnaire. Test A consists of the separate item MC cloze of Passage One and the banked cloze adapted from Passage Two; Test B includes the separate item MC cloze of Passage Two and the banked cloze adapted from Passage One. After the tests and questionnaire,10subjects were selected at random to do retrospective report to recall their test-taking process. The test scores and questionnaire results were analyzed by SPSS15.0, and the data of the retrospective report were calculated with a construct validity formula. In this way, the relevant data of face validity, content validity and construct validity were collected.The conclusions of the study are drawn as follows:there are some variations in validities of separate item MC cloze and banked cloze which are adapted from the same passage with the same deletion places; and significant differences exist in test-takers’performances when different cloze formats are utilized. More precisely, separate item MC cloze has better face validity than banked cloze; subjects’scores of separate item MC cloze are obviously higher than that of banked cloze; compared with separate item MC cloze, banked cloze is of higher difficulty level and discrimination capacity, it tends to measure test-takers’higher-order language ability, and has higher construct validity.At last, some suggestions for cloze test design and ESL teaching and learning are proposed.