A Validation Of Construct Validity Of The Test Of English Reading-writing Critical Thinking Skills For Senior High School Students

Critical thinking skills are the most important contents of the core literacy for English subject.Since the core literacy for English subject proposed,the cultivation of students' critical thinking skills has become a heated topic which discussed on English teaching.Nowadays,the study on cultivating students' critical thinking skills has been involved in the daily teaching activities of English course.Therefore,this paper intended to integrate the critical thinking skills test into English reading-writing test tasks and develop a test of English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students.Meanwhile,with the purpose to examine the construct validity of this test,this paper will analyze the construct validity by way of correlation analysis and test-taking processes analysis.On the one hand,a questionnaire,named "Free Critical Thinking Test",was employed to survey the current state of critical thinking skills of the senior high school students,which was also taken as a reference to conduct a correlation analysis with the results from the test of English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students.The correlation analysis' results shown that their scores have significant correlation in a positive way.It meant that the senior high school students'critical thinking skills could be reflected in the test of English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students,which verified the presupposed construct validity of the test of English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students.On the other hand,four students were invited to report their test taking processes,whose reports were analyzed as a qualitative evidence to examine the construct validity of the test of English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students.The agreement between the test taking processes and the critical thinking skills intended to be measured by the test were analyzed through transcribing the records of the four students' test taking reports.The results shown that at least 25%of the student's reported test taking processes were in conformity with the critical thinking skills' components which intended to be test in each question.In other words,the four students' test taking processes shown that at least one of their thinking components was 100%in line with the critical thinking skills components which intended to be measured in the test of English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students.Thus,the newly developed test has measured what it intended to be measured,that is,the English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students have been tested,which support the construct validity of the test for qualitative perspective.In conclusion,both the quantitative and qualitative evidence support the claim that the test of English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students has measured what it intended to be measured,and hence its construct validity was well-established.This study also shown that integrating the critical thinking skills test into the English reading-writing test was feasible and practicable,and the construct validity of the test of English reading-writing critical thinking skills for senior high school students was well supported by quantitative and qualitative evidence.And the test has reference value for applying into daily activities of English teaching.