Evaluating The Construct Validity Of A Listening Test In Pearson Test Of Academic English

Pearson Test of Academic English (PTE Academic) is one of the latest additions of internationally available tests claiming to assess English language ability required in English-medium academic settings. The study in this thesis focuses on its listening section. Until now, little research has been conducted on the validation of PTE Academic’s listening tests. There are even fewer studies investigating listeners’mental processes by using verbal protocols. Therefore, the purpose of the study presented in this thesis is to investigate whether one listening test in PTE Academic could effectively test all the listening constructs described in the test specifications and its official guidebook.Stimulated recall was used as the research method and the participants’cognitive processes during the listening test were the focus. Ten Chinese students who were equally divided into two groups (the control group and the experimental group) participated in this study. The control group only took the test while the experimental group took the test and completed a stimulated recall as well. The stimulated recall was used to explore participants’mental processes while they were their answers. The study is intended to provide evidence for one of the interpretative argument between the test score and the interpretation of that score.The results demonstrate that most of the required constructs were successfully tested in this test on the basis of participants’verbal reports. The finding also shows that some tasks were more likely to be carried out by test-wiseness strategies, which may result in affecting the validity of this test. In summary, the study provides new insights into the validation study of a listening test as well as a way of exploring test-takers’mental processes during tests.