| . |
. |
. |
|
Construct
Validity in Reading Tests
|
|
|
Designing a good test is
one of the most important tasks in teaching a reading course. The objective of this
article is to provide guidelines to help teachers to write valid reading comprehension
tests. To achieve this, some important areas from the reading and testing literature must
be considered.
|
|
|
The work of Goodman (1967)
made important contributions to the way in which we understand reading today. He rejected
the notion that reading is a precise process of perception and identification and
described it as a psycholinguistic guessing game. He suggested that the reader begins a
reading task already possessing certain information, which allows her/him to pick up
important fragments of the text in order to reconstruct it. The information that readers
already possess is characterized as background knowledge. Authors like Coady (1979)
described the role that such knowledge played in EFL/ESL reading.
|
|
|
The importance of
background knowledge in reading is also central to schema theory (Rumelhart 1980). This
theory claims that reading a text implies an interaction between the reader's background
knowledge and the text itself. The knowledge that is organized and stored in the reader's
mind is called schemata. According to this theory, fluent readers relate their schemata
with the new information present in text.
|
|
|
Many teachers now accept
the view that reading is the result of a two-way communication between the reader and the
text, achieved through the simultaneous interaction of bottom-up information processing
(which involves word recognition, sound/spelling correspondence, etc.,) and top-down
processing (which involves skills like prediction, inference, etc.)
|
|
|
Construct validity in testing
|
|
|
Validity is an important
factor in designing good reading comprehension tests. Psychometricians distinguish between
several types of validity. Savignon (1983) mentions five: face validity, content validity,
predictive validity, concurrent validity, and construct validity.
|
|
|
Construct validity
explores the adequacy of a test in relation to theory. In the case of reading
comprehension, tests should reflect the theoretical assumptions under which reading
teachers operate. For instance, if teachers view reading as an interactive process, tests
have to be designed to give students opportunities to make use of their schematic
knowledge.
|
|
|
Factors related to the construct validity
of reading comprehension tests
|
|
|
Carrell (1983)
distinguished between formal schemata (knowledge about the structural configuration of
texts) and content schemata (knowledge about the subject matter of text). She found that a
reader may fail to understand a text if it does not follow a formal schema (coherent
organization) or if content schema was lacking. Carrell (1984) and Alderson and Urquhart
(1988) documented the discipline-specific effect of content schemata in their work with
students who found it difficult to read texts which did not relate to their area of study.
Stefensen, Joagdev and Anderson (1979) found that a particular content schema may not
exist for a reader if that schema is culturally specific; so the texts used in a test
should be culturally accessible. Rivers (1968) suggested that the cultural link between
culture and language must be maintained to allow for complete understanding. Thus,
previous cultural and schematic knowledge is a factor in constructing reading
comprehension tests.
|
|
|
Rumelhart (1980) claims
that bottom-up and top-down processing occur simultaneously while reading. This reading
process should not be neglected in tests (Eskey 1988). A test should not concentrate
solely on asking students to draw inferences from a text. The test should also allow for
the reader's use of lower level decoding skills. Briefly put, tests should contain items
that test both, bottom-up and top-down elements.
|
|
|
Tests should provide
sufficient room for students to use their background knowledge. Shing and Dunkel (1992)
investigating EFL listening comprehension, suggest that the passage-dependent items
(listening-bound items) and passage-independent items (information related to the
listener's prior knowledge) should be balanced. Eliminating passage-independent items
would leave only low-level questions on the tests, reducing the chance for the listeners
to make inferences and predictions while processing the aural information. On the other
hand, if passage-dependent items are skipped, the test will draw primarily upon background
knowledge and not measure listening skills. This testing implication of Shing and Dunkel's
work is applicable to reading-comprehension tests.
|
|
|
Guidelines for constructing valid reading comprehension tests
|
|
|
Based upon this body of
research, I suggest the following guidelines for constructing reading tests.
|
|
|
- Reading tests should take into account the students' content
schemata by including texts about topics which have been dealt with previously in class.
- Reading tests should not include texts which are tied to a culture
(i.e., culture-specific).
- Tests should contain passage-dependent, as well as
passage-independent items.
- The texts should be coherently organized to allow students to draw
the organizational patterns from their formal schemata.
- It is advisable to use texts which are semantically complete and
authentic.
- The tasks involved in answering test items should allow for
higher-level interpretation skills, as well as low level recognition skills.
|
|
|
These guidelines reflect
the latest developments in the area of reading research within the framework of schema
theory. I hope these recommendations will help teachers appreciate the importance of
construct validity in assessing reading comprehension.
|
|
|
Wilfredo Sequera is currently teaching reading courses at the
Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas. He is also working on his EFL master thesis at the
Universidad Pedagogica Experimental Libertador in Caracas. |
|
|
Return |
|
|
- Alderson, C. and A. Urquhart. 1988. This test is unfair. I'm not
an economist. In Interactive approaches to second language reading, ed. P. Carrell, J.
Devine and D. Eske. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Carrell, P. 1983. Background knowledge in second language
comprehension. Language Learning and Communication, 2, 1, pp. 25-34.
- Carrell, P. 1984. Schema theory and ESL reading: Classroom
implications and applications. Modern Language Journal, 68, 332-43.
- Coady, J. 1979. A psycholinguistic model of the ESL reader. In
Reading in a second Language, ed. R. McKay, B. Barkman and R. Jordan. Rowley, Mass:
Newbury House.
- Eskey, D. 1988. Holding in the bottom: An interactive approach to
the problems of second language readers. In Interactive approaches to second language
reading. ed. P. Carrell, J. Devine, and D. Eskey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Goodman, K. 1967. Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game.
Journal of the Reading Specialist, 6, 1, pp. 126-35.
- Hudson, T. 1982. The effects of induced schemata on the
"Short Circuit" in L2 reading performance. In Language Learning, 32, 1, pp.
1-31.
- Rivers, W. 1968. Teaching foreign language skills. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
- Rumelhart, D. 1980. Schemata: The building blocks of cognition. In
Theoretical issues in reading comprehension. R. Spiro, B. Bruce and W. Brewer. Hillsdale,
N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Savington, S. 1983. Communicative competence. Theory and classroom
practice. Reading, Mass.: Prentice Hall.
- Shing, C. C. and P. Dunkel. 1992. The effect of speech
modification prior knowledge, and listening proficiency on EFL lecture learning. TESOL,
Quarterly, 26, 2, pp. 345-73.
- Steffensen, M., C. Joagdev and R. Anderson. 1979. A Cross-Cultural
perspective on Reading Comprehension. Research Quarterly, 15, 1, pp. 203-9.
|
|
|
. |
. |