【作者】 刘红；

【导师】 王延彬；

【作者基本信息】 吉林大学 ， 外国语言学及应用语言学， 2012， 硕士

【摘要】 英语专业四级考试(TEM4)由全国高等院校外语专业教学指导委员会自1991年起实行，考察全国综合性大学英语专业学生的尺度参照性标准化考试。本考试的目的是对已学完英语专业四级课程的学生进行全面检查，看其是否达到教学大纲所规定的各项要求，不仅对学生运用语言的综合能力，而且对运用各项基本技能的能力进行客观、准确的测量，同时也对教学质量进行评估，使此项考试对英语教学产生正面的反拨作用。内容效度是语言测试效度研究的一个核心问题。内容效度决定了测试方法多大程度上测试出语言能力。写作测试作为英语专业四级考试中重要的组成部分，其内容效度的高低对整个考试内容效度都有重要的影响。邹申（1999）介绍了英语专业八级考试写作部分的评估标准，修旭东（2010）讨论了中国高校英语专业写作测试效度检验研究，张科科（2010）探讨了英语专业八级写作内容效度研究，之后对英语写作测试内容效度研究甚少，尤其是对英语专业四级写作测试内容效度的研究还属于空白。因此，本文将从以下两个方面研究改革后（2005年至2011年）英语专业四级写作测试的内容效度：英语专业四级写作测试是否达到了教学大纲和考试大纲的要求，即与教学大纲和考试大纲的吻合度如何；英语专业四级写作测试是否具有代表性，其与写作测试目的相关性及对学生的适合程度如何。根据Bachman和Palmer的任务特点框架，并结合英语专业教学大纲和TEM4考试大纲中对写作测试部分的要求，以及TEM4写作部分自身的实际特点，本文提出了一个更具操作性的写作测试内容效度评估框架。此框架包括测试说明、写作输入、预期回答、写作输入与预期回答之间的关系四个方面。本文根据这一框架对2005-2011年改革后TEM4写作测试的7篇大作文、7篇便条写作任务进行了分析，并且对60名英语专业的学生进行了英语专业四级写作模拟考试，从测试说明、写作输入、预期回答、写作输入与预期回答之间的关系四个方面对学生设计了调查问卷及访谈，运用SPSS软件对搜集到的数据进行频率分析，而且对学生的作文进行了评分。研究结果表明，2005年至2011年的英语专业四级写作测试部分的内容效度较高，基本符合教学大纲和考试大纲的要求。具体表现在：TEM4写作测试的大部分特点与相应教学大纲和考试大纲相吻合，比如，体裁、题材、长度、写作速度等都符合教学大纲和考试大纲的要求；难度比较适宜。另外研究还发现：（1）通过对考试分数的整体分析表明：学生在本次模拟写作测试中表现良好，能够较真实的发挥出写作水平。（2）通过调查问卷数据频率分析和访谈分析表明：英语专业四级写作测试总体上是有效的，但是写作测试在写作说明如分值分配和评分标准、写作输入如情景输入和题材、预期回答如写作体裁方面都有待提高。过半数学生对现行实施的考试形式“情景/观点+题目”比较满意。最后，本文根据研究结果为以后英语专业四级写作测试试题的设计、英语专业教学和学习提供了一些建议。更多还原

【Abstract】 Test for English Majors Band4(TEM4) is a criterion-referenced proficiency testfor English major undergraduates in colleges and universities in China, administeredby Instructional Committee of Higher Education Foreign Language Major of Ministryof Education since1991. The objective of this test is to check the sophomore ofEnglish majors when they have finished all the TEM4courses in order to see if theymeet the requirements of teaching syllabus. It not only measures their comprehensiveability of using English, but also the ability of using basic skills in every aspect;meanwhile, it is to evaluate English language teaching and to bring about beneficialbackwash effect on English teaching and learning.Content validity is an essential issue of validity research in language test. It iscontent validity that determines the extent to which the language ability is tested bythe test method. Writing test, as one of the important parts in TEM4, the contentvalidity of writing has great influence on content validity of the whole test. Zou Shen(1999) introduced the scoring criteria of TEM8writing test part, Xiu Xudong (2010)discussed the “Validating English Language Academic Writing Tests at Tertiary Levelin China”, and Zhang Keke (2010) conducted a content validity study on TEM8writing. Since then, few longitudinal content validity study of writing in TEM isconducted; especially no study is conducted on content validity of TEM4writing.Therefore, this thesis will focus on the content validity study on TEM4writing afterinnovation from2005to2011in the two aspects: whether TEM4writing correspondsto the requirements of teaching syllabus (2000version) and testing syllabus(2004version), or to what extent does the writing part of TEM4meet the requirementsin the teaching and testing syllabuses; whether the content is representative or relevantto the test goal and suitable for the test takers.Based on Bachman&Palmer’s framework of task characteristics, combining thecharacteristics of TEM4writing and with the help of TEM4writing requirements ofteaching and testing syllabuses, the author proposes a revised framework of taskcharacteristics for writing assessment with reference to the actuality of TEM4inChina. The modified framework includes the test rubrics, the input, the expectedresponse, and the relationship between input and expected response. This thesis has examined seven TEM4papers, including seven composition writing and sevennote-writing tasks in terms of the four characteristics in the modified framework; andalso administered a simulated TEM4writing test among60sophomore of Englishmajors, and then conducted a questionnaire and interviews concerning four aspects ofcontent validity, namely test rubrics, input, expected response, and relationshipbetween input and expected response. Meanwhile, the collected data were analyzedby SPSS, and the writing results were rated.The research results shows that the content validity of TEM4writing from2005to2011is high and the writing tasks in TEM4highly meet the requirements ofteaching and testing syllabuses mainly reflected in the characteristics of TEM4writing tasks, such as the genre, topic, length and writing speed, etc; the difficulty oftest tasks is appropriate for the test takers.In addition, some other findings are found:(1) Through the whole analysis of the result and scores of the composition andnote-writing, it showed that the students’ performance was favorable in currentsimulated examination.(2) Through the frequency analysis of data from questionnaire and interview, thecontent validity of the writing part of TEM4is acceptable on the whole. However,some efforts should be made to improve the aspects of the testing rubrics includingthe score allotment and criteria of correctness, the input including the contextualinformation and subject matter (topic), and the expected response including the genreof writing types. Many more than half students were satisfied with the test format of“situation/opinion+title”.At last, some suggestions are made for TEM4writing design, English teachingand testing for English majors.更多还原