Evaluating the Reading Comprehension Questions of the SAET and the DRET

• Main Authors: Chin-Ni Liu, 劉金霓
• Other Authors: Wen-Ying Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/48893078143699069636

碩士 === 臺北市立教育大學 === 英語教學系碩士班 === 97 === This study aims to evaluate the reading comprehension questions of the Scholastic Achievement English Test (SAET) and the Department Required English Test (DRET) from 2004 to 2008. Specifically, the study intends to answer the following three research questions: (1) What reading skills are measured in the SAET and the DRET reading comprehension section? What is the percentage of the items for each of these skills? (2) How did the examinees in general perform on reading comprehension questions measuring each of the reading skills in the SAET and the DRET? (3) For both tests, which reading skills identified can consistently best discriminate between the high scorers and the low scorers? For the purpose of answering the research questions, Nuttall’s (2000) categorizations of reading skills and question types were mainly used as the coding scheme. Apart from the researcher, two experts in the field of English are invited as raters to categorize each of the 134reading comprehension items into one of the 12 reading skills. The results showed that six reading skills were identified in the SAET from 2004 to 2008, including (1) Comprehending Literal Meaning, (2) Recognizing and Interpreting Cohesive Device, (3) Recognizing Functional Value, (4) Recognizing Implications and Inferences, (5) Interpreting, and (6) Reorganizing. As for the DRET, in addition to the above six reading skills, one more reading skill, Recognizing Style and Tone, was also identified. Besides, the SAET takers performed best on the Comprehending Literal Meaning items, but worst on the Recognizing Functional Value items, whereas the DRET takers performed best on the Recognizing Functional Value items, but worst on the Recognizing Style and Tone items. Furthermore, the examinees generally perform better in the SAET than those in the DRET, in terms of the mean passing rate for each reading skill. Finally, no specific reading skill identified can consistently best discriminate the high scorers from the low scorers for both tests.