A Study On Content Validity Of Reading Comprehension In Zhejiang Province Matriculation English Test (2013-2015)

In the recent years, constant innovations have taken place in China’s elementary education field and English as a subject of study is no exception. With the implementation of the new policy of College Entrance Examination in 2017, the National Matriculation English Test of Zhejiang province (ZJMET) will be conducted twice every year. As reading plays an increasingly crucial role in ZJMET, it is of great necessity to conduct the related research concerning reading comprehension. The thesis aims at probing the content validity of reading comprehension test in Zhejiang province in recent three years. Specifically speaking, it firstly explores the general features of reading comprehension of ZJMET, then the content validity of reading comprehension from the perspective of content relevance, content coverage, and content difficulty.The research subject is the reading part of ZJMET from 2013 to 2015, including 15 reading passages and 75 question items. The data will be analyzed both in qualitative and quantitative ways. Concerning the collection of objective data (including "Length"; "Standardized Type-Token Ratio"; "Reading Speed"), Readability Analyzer 1.0, Microsoft (Excel) and Word-counter online will be adopted for the purpose of calculation. With regard to the subjective data, such as the "Genre" and "Topic", the author will firstly classify them on the ground of the Testing Syllabus, then take some senior high school teachers’suggestions as reference for those uncertain items.Based on the Framework of Task Characteristics proposed by Bachman and Palmer as well as their explanation for content validity, a new research framework is rebuilt according to the real context of ZJMET. The content validity is studied from the perspective of content relevance, content coverage and content difficulty. Content relevance includes the presentation form of reading materials, topic and genre, length and reading speed. Content coverage refers to the test format and the reading skills to be examined in the test. Content difficulty thus involves readability of reading texts and the design of question items.The research results are as follows:1) Roughly speaking, the structure and layout of reading test in recent years are steady and reasonable, while the design of some question items is not scientific.2) As for the content validity, first, in reference to the content relevance:For one thing, despite the authenticity and novelty of the topic of reading passages, it is not extensive enough to cover the required topic on the testing syllabus. For another, the length of reading passages is fairly long, especially passage D of each year, which reaches to almost 700 words. Second, in terms of the content coverage, although five kinds of reading skills are involved, the distribution varies drastically from one to another, especially the distribution of reading skills "understanding explicitly stated information" and "understanding the basic structure of passages". Finally, when it comes to the content difficulty, it is in accordance with most test-takers’English proficiency, however, the stem and options of some question items are not well constructed. In short, concerning "topic", "distribution of reading skills", as well as "the design of question items", considerable pains should be taken to perfect the study of content validity of ZJMET.The study ventures to build a new research framework to probe the content validity of reading comprehension in ZJMET. At the same time, it hopes to shed some light on research concerning content validity.