Exploring EFL Junior High School Students' Attitudes and Cognitive Processing of Taking the Pictorial Vocabulary Size Test

• Main Authors: I-Fang Lu, 呂宜芳
• Other Authors: Dr. Wen-Ta Tseng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/22274215855418331293

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語學系在職進修碩士班 === 101 === The importance of developing an adequate vocabulary size for students in Taiwan has recently be recognized and emphasized. However, so far there is no workable vocabulary size test aimed to test the first 1,200-word for Taiwan junior high school students. The study used the Pictorial Vocabulary Size Test to estimate the vocabulary size of Taiwan junior high school students. The purposes are to explore students’ attitudes towards this test, to describe the cognitive processing of the test-taking and to provide suggestions for the misfit items. 476 junior high school students participated in this study. Nine subjects were selected as the interviewees and 12 items were identified as the misfit items. The analyses show that this Pictorial Vocabulary Size Test serves as a successful instrument for testing Taiwan junior high school students’ vocabulary size from an affectively perspective. Besides, a certain pattern is found in the cognitive processing of the test-taking and seven suggestions are presented to improve the overall test quality and to facilitate vocabulary teaching.