Developing an Online English Reading Test for Senior Elementary School Students

• Main Authors: Chang, Yu-Ting, 張語婷
• Other Authors: Kuo, Bor-Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/s529x8

碩士 === 國立臺中教育大學 === 教育測驗統計研究所 === 102 === Abstract The purpose of this research is to design a computerized online English reading test for grade six elementary students. It is designed on a basis of the English reading abilities for the Nine-Year Curriculum Outline. The question types and contents have been exploited from the English elementary textbooks published by Longman, Kang Hsuan, Hess, Han Lin and Kid Castle, as well as TASA Online Exam Bank. It is expected that this study can assist the frontline elementary English teachers to find out how well the six graders have learnt their vocabulary, grammar and daily English, as well as the difficulties they may experience in the learning process. What’s more, it is believed that this study can used as a tool for junior high school English teachers to pick up and expand students’ English acknowledgement. The test is consisted of 40 multiple choice questions, with a total of 590 test takers from Taichung and Chunghwa Areas. The results of the research are as follows: 1. The test reliability is 0.84, which is considered reasonable. 2. The test takers responses are analyzed with the 3PL IRT model, and the findings are: the average discrimination index is 0.99; the average difficulty index is -0.58; and the average guessing rate is 0.35. 3. The average passing rate of the test is 0.74, which means the test questions are considerably easy. More thorough analysis have been taken place using the A, B, C values, with a basis of the MLE、EAP and MAP methods. It is found that the EAP and MAP estimation methods are more desirable than the MLE method as far as standard errors and test takers’ ability estimates are concerned. Added to this, when the test reliability reaches 0.84, close to 0.85, the test takers only need to answer 16 test items for the SE estimated with the EAP method to be smaller than 0.38. Keywords: Achievement Test, Computerized Adaptive Test (CAT), Item Response Theory (IRT), Elementary English Reading Competence