A Content Validity Study Of TEM-8 Reading Comprehension From 2016 To 2018

TEM-8(Test for English Majors Band-8)is the only large-scale criterionreferenced test designed specifically for English majors in China.It is also the highestlevel test for English majors in Chinese universities.Since the first test in 1991,TEM-8 has gone through 28 years.During this period,the test has undergone two revisions respectively in 2004 and 2015.The newly revised testing syllabus in 2015 increases the ratio of reading comprehension part in TEM-8 from 20% to 30%,and according to Zhao(2016),many testing tasks in TEM-8 have been integrated in reading comprehension,which highlights the importance of reading comprehension part in TEM-8.However,there is no diachronic study on the content validity of reading comprehension part in TEM-8 since the testing syllabus was revised in 2015.Therefore,based on Bachman and Palmer’s task characteristics framework,combining the teaching syllabus for English majors(2000)and the testing syllabus for TEM-8(2015),this study attempts to conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis on the content validity of reading comprehension part in TEM-8 from 2016 to 2018 from the perspectives of characteristics of the input and characteristics of the expected response.The results of the study indicate that the content validity of the TEM-8 reading comprehension part in these three years after the testing syllabus was revised in 2015 is relatively high on the whole.It can be proven in the following six aspects: 1)the text length of the reading material is appropriate with a trend of diminishing;2)the reading speed is far away from the requirements of the testing syllabus for TEM-8(2015),which reduces the overall content validity of reading comprehension part;3)the range of topic area is wide,but the distribution is uneven;4)all kinds of genres are adopted;5)the text difficulty is between the difficulty and the fairly difficulty,which meets the requirement in the testing syllabus for TEM-8(2015);6)Most reading skills are covered.To solve the problems found in the research,the author suggests that test developers should increase the length of the reading material to 3000-3500 words,which will not only meet the requirement of the testing syllabus for TEM-8(2015)on the length of the text,but also ensures the reading speed;In addition,the text difficulty of reading comprehension part in TEM-8 is getting earier year after year,which should draw test developers’ attention.Finally,the test only undergoes three years after the testing syllabus for TEM-8(2015)is implemented,which made the amount of research samples limited.It is hoped to have more research on the validity of TEM-8 in the future.