Constructing And Evaluating ETIC Score Report For Test-Takers

Being the bridge between the test and decisions as well as actions of information users,test score reports has always been gaining increased attention from scholars both home and abroad.Some researchers have put forward systematic theoretical frameworks regarding contents,developing processes as well as display principles of score reports.Refining score reports has been strongly advocated by both scholars and government filings.However,there are few empirical studies focused on developing score reports for ETIC and other large-scale language tests in general.The present study continued the focus by making further efforts and attempts to develop a new score report prototype for ETIC.The primary purpose of the study was to investigate ETIC stakeholders’ underlying needs and expectations of the prospective score report of ETIC and to construct a new score report prototype as well as to evaluate its usefulness.This study was conducted in two phases,namely phase one—designing the ETIC score report prototype,and phase two-evaluating(field-testing)the prototype with intended users.Due to the limitation of time and resources,this study mainly focused on ETIC-Intermediate.In phase one,stakeholders’ perceptions of the prospective score report of ETIC were investigated through online questionnaire surveys,collecting answers from ETIC test-takers(n=19308),EFL teachers(n=88)and ETIC experts(n=3).The results demonstrated that eighty percent of ETIC test-takers and seventy-four percent EFL teachers deem it necessary to further refine ETIC score report by making it more comprehensive,detailed and personalized.Stakeholders’ assessment information needs turned out to be a bit divergent with available assessment information.Inconsistencies were reconciled through semi-structured interviews with ETIC experts and the contents of the score report prototype were determined according to experts’ judgment.Inspiration was derived from score reports of other language tests,and then,the score report prototype was designed.In phase two,the score report prototype was field-tested with ETIC test-takers(n=149)and EFL teachers(n=153)by another round of online questionnaire surveys.The overall feedback of the participants was positive and encouraging,with about sixty percent of test-takers and more than eighty percent of EFL teachers approving the new score report prototype of ETIC.Besides,possible merits and demerits of the score report prototype were recognized and identified through the surveys.Hopefully,the results of the study will provide implications and good practices for the future development of ETIC score report and also for follow-up score report studies.