An Empirical Study On The Validity Of The Cloze Test Of NMET Hunan

As an efficient and economic tool for measuring the language competence of students, the multiple-choice cloze (shorten as MC cloze) is commonly used in kinds of test. However, a single type of cloze test cannot ensure the effeciency of the tests concerning the language competence of students. That’s the reason why the NMET Hunan has been reformed. The cloze test in the reformed NMET (National Matriculation English Test) Hunan is comprised of the MC cloze and the open cloze. The MC cloze is supposed to be used for measuring students’ comprehensive ability in terms of semantics, context and discourse; while the open cloze is designed for measuring students’application ability of language as regards to lnaguage sense, the cohension, coherence, structure, etc. But in fact, as for the NMET Hunan2011, the two types of the close test gave priority to the measurement of language competency. As a result, their validity requires further research.In order to have a clear picture of the application of the cloze test in the NMET Hunan2011after the reform, this research, through the use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches, tried to make a comparative study on the MC cloze and open cloze. Moreover, it, based on the analysis of the testees’real performance, aimed to investigate the exact aspect of the language ability measured by each type of cloze test.Senior2Students of a middle school in Yuelu District took part in this research. They, who had never seen the NMET Hunan2011before, were asked to finish the cloze test and the self-assessment questionnaire separately. After the test, their scores were put into the computer for study through the SPSS17.0. The statistical result showed that there was a significant difference between the two types of cloze tests scores and the testees got higher scores in the MC cloze, which indicated that the MC cloze is easier for these testees.Besides the above experiment, some teaching and testing experts were invited to make jugements on the content validity as well as the anticipative test-taking performance. Later, their judging results would be used to be the criterion for valuing the testees’real performances. Through the comparative analysis of the testees’real performances and the expected test-taking performance in the computer with the SPSS17.0and the LISREL, we can draw the conclusion that the MC cloze has an advantage on measuring the testees’comprehensive ability of discourse and the discrimination competence of the vocabulary, while the open cloze is more suitable for measuring the wring ability and the structural competence. Therefore, the validity of the MC cloze is higher.Based on the above research results, this research put forward the following suggestions for the test designers and the English teachers: First, test designers should pay more attention to the selection of the choices for reducing the guess probability, so the test can have a more effective use. Different contexts of cloze test and the scoring criterion also should be emphasized to make sure the test is fair.Second, in the real teaching process, teachers should combine subjective items and objective items to train the students’language comprehension and application abilities.Because of the small sample size, the results are not cross-validated and the conclusion has some limitations. So the research results are for reference only.