206 / 2018-08-15 19:36:53

Aligning Zhejiang University English Proficiency Test—Writing subtest (ZJUEPT-Writing) to the China’s Standards of English (CSE)

Alignment, ZJUEPT, CSE, Text analysis

全体主题 > 语言测试与语言能力标准的对接研究

This paper reports on a linking project designed to align Zhejiang University English Proficiency Test—Writing subtest (ZJUEPT-Writing) to the writing scale of China’s Standards of English (CSE). To provide a unified standard for English language learning, teaching and assessment in China, a national English ability scale called the China’s Standards of English (CSE) had been developed over the past four years and was released in February, 2018. With the implementation of the CSE, it is imperative that different English tests be mapped onto this common framework. ZJUEPT, one of the exit requirements for non-English majors at Zhejiang University, is a high-stakes in-house institutional test. The writing subtest requires test-takers to write an argumentative essay based on a given topic with no less than 160 words within the time limits of 30 minutes. Test-takers should get at least 12 points out of 20 to pass the test. To map ZJUEPT-Writing onto CSE, this study followed the linking procedures suggested in the Council of Europe’s (2009) Manual, namely familiarization, specification, standardization, and empirical validation. Results showed that the cut-off point 12 was aligned to CSE-Level 5. However, the cut-off point was established on the judgement of experienced examiner and expert but with few evidential supports. Therefore, in order to further justify the legitimacy of this passing score, this study intended to investigate if the above-12-point writings are significantly different from the below-12-point writings in terms of their text features. Analytic tools such as VocabProfile and Coh-Metrix are used to achieve this end.