A Study On Content Validity Of The English Test For Reading-Writing Critical Thinking Skills In Senior High School

Reading and writing proficiency is the key to English teaching as well as language evaluation.Critical thinking skills are the most fundamental,essential and important ability for every single learner.Present English education status quo in China suggests that reading and writing proficiency cultivation and critical thinking skills assessment are undervalued and delinked.Therefore,based on Input Hypothesis,Output Hypothesis,Output-driven and Input-enabled Hypothesis and Schemata Theory,the study is intended to find a creative way to establish the linkage between reading and writing proficiency and critical thinking skills for senior high school students and puts forward the concept of English reading-writing critical thinking skills in senior high schools and try to give a precise definition and establish an evaluative framework for it.Based on the latest requirement of English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools(2017 Version),the Two-Dimensional Structure Model of the Delphi Project,Wen Qiufang’s Speculative Ability Level Model and Bloom’s classification of cognitive process dimensions,the study establishes a framework for English reading-writing critical thinking skills in senior high school composed of 12 specific abilities.According to the framework,the study designs a test aiming at examining senior high school students’English reading-writing critical thinking skills.The purpose of the study is to analyze the content validity of the test,then continually modify the test content and test format,and finally develop a test for English reading-writing critical thinking skills that is truly suitable for senior high school students in our country.The research objects contain 203 students of Grade Two from two senior high schools and 100 English teachers from five senior high schools in Fujian Province and the research task is to analyze the content validity of the English test designed by the author.The study result shows that the English test designed by the author can examine senior high school students’ English reading-writing critical thinking skills.Therefore,the test has high content validity.The specific results are shown as follows.Firstly,from the perspective of the analysis of the questionnaire,the test content covers the English reading-writing critical thinking skills that senior high school students must master.Secondly,from the perspective of the analysis of the language use task characteristics framework,the test content can meet the demand of senior high students’ English proficiency.However,based on the status quo of senior high school English teaching in China that the reading and writing proficiency cultivation and critical thinking skills assessment are delinked and that the reading and writing test is dissociated from the critical thinking skills assessment,most students feel a sense of strangeness to the test content and test format when they have the test for English reading-writing critical thinking skills at the first time.Therefore,according to the backwash of language testing,the author suggests that English teaching in senior high school should pay equal attention to both the development of students’reading and writing proficiency and their critical thinking skills.Taking the reading and writing tasks as a medium,English teachers should integrate the evaluation of critical thinking skills into the tasks,and gradually raise the difficulty of the test items in order to help students improve their English reading-writing critical thinking skills.