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Abstract            Volume:7  Issue-10  Year-2019         Original Research Articles


Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215
Issues : 12 per year
Publisher : Excellent Publishers
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An Exploration into the Content Validity of Tests in the Teaching of Communicative English Course: Determinants and Consequences
Firew Dejene Becho and Ayele Eyob Kenta
Faculty of Social Science and Humanities Department of English Language and Literature Wolayita Sodo University, Ethiopia
*Corresponding author
Abstract:

The major objective of the study was to assess whether Hosanna and Wolaita Sodo University teachers of English language and literature do prepare tests that reflect the classroom instruction or not. Hence, the researchers of this study took two-semester English examination papers to assess the tests constructed by the teachers do possess or lack content validity. In order to check the existence of content validity, the writer cross checked the content area coverage of the test items (reading, vocabulary, grammar, speaking, listening and writing) from the course module against with the amount of questions constructed from each category in the tests. The content validity of tests is mainly analyzed by comparing the amount of questions under the expected and observed columns by using the chi-square method of data analysis. Both the amount of expected and observed amount of questions was computed by using the coverage size of each item in the teaching material. Thus, the amount of expected number of questions judged by the amount of the total periods allocated to each language items (sections) in the respective semesters in the course syllabus. In addition, the writers also used teachers’ and students’ questionnaire in order to have in-depth understanding concerning the awareness of teachers on the concept of content validity, their testing practice and the impact of teachers’ testing practice upon the students’ attitude towards studying and learning of the language aspects. Finally, from the findings it is possible to conclude that the freshman Communicative English language examinations (tests) of the two Universities have low content validity in order to measure students’ achievement properly. Therefore, it was recommended that to construct tests with good content validity, teachers need to follow principles of test construction such as using table of specification, and they should be provided with supplementary training programs such as courses on evaluation and measurement, and language testing and assessment to create the necessary awareness on the issue understudy.

Keywords: Content validity, Test construction, Table of specifications, Language components
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How to cite this article:

Firew Dejene Becho and Ayele Eyob Kenta. 2019. An Exploration into the Content Validity of Tests in the Teaching of Communicative English Course: Determinants and Consequences.Int.J.Curr.Res.Aca.Rev. 7(10): 34-45
doi: https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcrar.2019.710.005
Copyright: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.