(Luận văn thạc sĩ) an evaluation on the validity of end term english tests used for year 11 students at a vietnamese public high school in the north east area of vietnam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
***************

NGUYỄN THỊ TRANG

AN EVALUATION ON THE VALIDITY OF
END-TERM ENGLISH TESTS USED FOR YEAR 11 STUDENTS
AT A VIETNAMESE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH
EAST AREA OF VIETNAM
(Đánh giá tính giá trị trong các bài kiểm tra hết học kỳ môn tiếng Anh
của học sinh lớp 11 ở một trường công lập tại phía Đơng Bắc Việt Nam)

Field: English Teaching Methodology (Applied program)
Code: 8140231.01

HANOI- 2019


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
***************

NGUYỄN THỊ TRANG

AN EVALUATION ON THE VALIDITY OF END-TERM
ENGLISH TESTS USED FOR YEAR 11 STUDENTS AT A
VIETNAMESE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH EAST
AREA OF VIETNAM

(Đánh giá tính giá trị trong các bài kiểm tra hết học kỳ môn tiếng Anh
của học sinh lớp 11 ở một trường công lập tại phía Đơng Bắc Việt Nam)

Field: English Teaching Methodology (Applied program)
Code: 8140231.01
Supervisor: Dr. Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Quynh
HANOI- 2019


DECLARATION
The thesis entitled “An evaluation on the validity of end-term English
tests used for year 11 students at a Vietnamese public high school in the
North East area of Vietnam” has been submitted for the Master of English
teaching methodology.
I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I am the sole author of this
thesis. I have fully acknowledged and referenced the ideas and work of others,
whether published or unpublished, in my thesis.
My thesis does not contain work extracted from a thesis, dissertation or
research paper previously presented for another degree or diploma at this or
any other universities.
Signed ..................................

Date ........./............/.............

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On the completion of this paper, I would like to express my gratitude to
all my teachers, my supervisor, the administrators, staffs, teachers, and
students at a Vietnamese public high school in the North-East area of
Vietnam, friends and family.
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratefulness to
my supervisor. She gives me all the best consultancy, valuable comments and
motivation as well.
Secondly, I highly express my gratitude to the teachers at Faculty of
Post-graduate Studies of University of Languages and International Studies
for their previous lessons in school year 2016-2018. They directly provided
me with the understandings, the knowledge and skills relating to my fieldEnglish language teaching.
Moreover, I sincerely appreciate the cooperation of the administrators,
staffs, teachers and students at a Vietnamese public high school in the NorthEast area of Vietnam. Especially, I am so thankful to Ms. A for providing me
the data of two school years.
Finally, I would like to thank my loved family, who have supported me
throughout entire process, both by keeping me harmonious and helping me
putting pieces together. I will be grateful forever for your love.

ii


ABSTRACT

English is one of the main subjects in Vietnam education nowadays.
All fields are using English from business, commercial, transport, technology
to tourism, education, and logistics. With the deep concerns about the
importance of English, the researcher carried out study titled: “An evaluation
on the validity of end-term English tests used for year 11 students at a
Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam”. The main

purpose of this research was to find out the validity on the end-term English
tests used for year 11 students. The participants were 2,481 test papers taken
in two school years of a public high school. The method was quantitative
approach. All scores were analyzed to compare the progress of learning in
two school years to find out the validity on the tests. The results showed that
it appears no valid in the tests although the teachers and students always
evaluate the progress of teaching and learning through only scores of endterm English tests for English subject. Basing on the findings, a number of
suggestions for better end-term English tests were indicated and it helps both
teachers and students have best look about measurement and evaluation their
teaching and learning. Therefore, the paper would be a good reference for
researchers, teachers and students to have a closer look on the issue as well as
to improve the end-term English tests.

Key words: validity, evaluation end-term tests, high school students

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION .............................................................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................ ii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................... iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................... vi
LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................... vi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 1
1.1. Rationale for choosing this topic ............................................................... 1
1.2. Scope of the study ...................................................................................... 2
1.3. Aims of the study ....................................................................................... 2

1.4. Methods of the study .................................................................................. 3
1.5. Research questions ..................................................................................... 3
1.6. Design of the thesis .................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................... 5
2.1. Basic concepts of testing ............................................................................ 5
2.2. The relationship between teaching, learning and assessment. ................... 6
2.2.1. Testing and teaching ............................................................................... 6
2.2.2. Testing and Learning............................................................................... 7
2.2.3. Language Testing .................................................................................... 9
2.3. Major characteristics of a good language test .......................................... 10
2.4. Achievement test and its types ................................................................. 16
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY............................................................... 17
3.1. English learning and teaching at a Vietnamese public high school in the
North East area of Vietnam. ............................................................................ 17
3.1.1. Students and their backgrounds ............................................................ 17
iv


3.1.2. The English staffs .................................................................................. 17
3.3.3. Syllabus and its objectives .................................................................... 18
3.1.4. The textbook: “Tiếng Anh 11”.............................................................. 21
3.2. English testing at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area
of Vietnam ....................................................................................................... 21
3.2.1. Testing situation .................................................................................... 21
3.2.2. The current final year-11 achievement tests ......................................... 22
3.3. Research method ...................................................................................... 24
3.3.1. Data collection instruments ................................................................... 25
3.3.2. Participants ............................................................................................ 25
3.4. Data analysis ............................................................................................ 25
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................... 32

4.1. Content validity ........................................................................................ 32
4.2. Construct validity ..................................................................................... 33
4.3. Face validity ............................................................................................. 34
4.4. Final evaluations ...................................................................................... 35
4.5. Conclusion for Section 3.5 ....................................................................... 35
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ..................................................................... 36
5.1. Summary of findings ................................................................................ 36
5.2. Limitations ............................................................................................... 39
5.3. Suggestions for further research .............................................................. 39
REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 41
APPPENDICES ................................................................................................ I
Appendix I: Final 1st Semester achievement test in year 2015-2016 ................ I
Appendix II: Final 1st Semester achievement test in year 2016-2017 ............ IV
Appendix III: Final 2nd Semester achievement test in year 2015-2016 .........VII
Appendix IV: Final 2nd Semester achievement test in year 2016-2017 ........... X
v


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CLT
1st
2nd

Communicative Language Teaching
The first
The second
LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1
Table 3.1

Table 3.2
Table 3.3
Table 3.4
Table 3.5
Table 3.6
Table 3.7
Table 3.8
Table 3.9
Table 3.10
Table 3.11

A checklist for test evaluation
Detail subjects for each grade
Number of English periods in two semesters
Syllabus goal and objectives
Topics of English 11
Specification of the first end-term test for year 11
Specification of the second end-term test for year 11
Average score of four achievement tests
Frequency distribution of 1st final achievement test in
2015-2016
Frequency distribution of 2nd final achievement test in
2015-2016
Frequency distribution of 1st final achievement test in
2016-2017
Frequency distribution of 2nd final achievement test in
2016-2017
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1

Test usefulness

Figure 3.1

Histogram of Score distribution

Figure 3.2
Figure 3.3
Figure 3.4

Histogram of Score distribution
Histogram of Score distribution
Histogram of Score distribution

vi

year
year
year
year


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale for choosing this topic
English is currently being used in at least sixty countries as the main
language and nearly one hundred countries as the second language all over the
world. In affiliation and globalization period, all fields are using English from
business, commercial, transport, technology to tourism, education, logistic.
English is a useful tool for people in the world to understand together.

Leading to the needs for learning and teaching English language in any part of
the world is growing. With national education in many countries, English has
become a compulsory subject. Their target is help learners access the best
things and have good jobs in the world. To meet these needs, the government
and the education department need to find the best ways to help teachers and
learners using proficiently English language.
Fully recognizing the importance of English language, the
government and the Ministry of education and training in Vietnam have
required all students from grade 3 to grade 12 to learn English as a
compulsory subject. Therefore, English has been taught at any primary,
secondary and high schools in Vietnam aiming at equipping the students with
a best tool to work in any field in their life. Strongly knowing the importance
of English language, a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area
of Vietnam has taught English subject in all classes from grade 10 to grade
12. With oriented classes, there are at least four periods per week and others
have three periods per week. Besides that, each year always has two semesters
with overall for 111 English periods. However, after finishing a semester and
a year, a test has not evaluated what students acquire English, how well they
use English with taught lessons and at which level of English they are
1


standing. In a public high school in the North East area of Vietnam, with
English subject, teachers and students have followed the textbook named
“Tiếng Anh 11” which has five main parts including these orders: reading,
speaking, listening, writing and language focus. Nevertheless, in the end-term
tests, only grammar knowledge is displayed on the test papers. So, do the tests
meet the validity? Can students use English well to communicate outside?
Seeing these points, I decide to undertake this study entitled “An
evaluation on the validity of end-term English tests used for year 11 students

at a Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam” with
the intention to find out how validity the tests are. More importantly, I
strongly hope that the results of the study can then be applied to improve the
current and to create a new really validity item bank. It is also intended to
encourage both teachers and learners in their teaching and learning.
1.2. Scope of the study
The scope of this thesis is limited to a research on examining the
existing achievement test in terms of its validity for year-11 students at a
Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam. The study
gives analyzed statistic data of the currently used tests and proposes practical
suggestions to improve the tests. Due to the limitations of time and research
conditions, it is impossible for the author to cover all used achievement tests
for all high school students at a Vietnamese public high school. Instead, only
four tests are studied.
1.3. Aims of the study
The major aim of the study is to evaluate the currently used
achievement tests for year 11 students at a Vietnamese public high school in
the North East area of Vietnam with a special focus on the test validity. The
specific aims of the research are:
2


 To evaluate the test validity through initial score statistics obtained
from the four achievement tests result of year 11 students at a
Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam.
 To pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of the test, and
 To provide practical suggestions for the test improvement.
1.4. Methods of the study
In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the study has been
carried out with the following methodologies.

First, the author based herself both on the theory and on the principle
of Language Testing, major characteristics of a good test, especially test
validity, achievement test and statistical methods used in interpreting test
results. From critical reading, the writer has gathered, analyzed and
synthesized many reference materials to draw out a theoretical basis to
evaluate the used achievement test for the 11 th year students in terms of its
validity.
1.5. Research questions
This study is implemented to find answers to the following research
questions:
1. To what extent do the tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamese
public school in the North East area of Vietnam meet the content
validity?
2. To what extent do the tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamese
public school in the North East area of Vietnam meet the construct
validity?
3. To what extent do the tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamese
public school in the North East area of Vietnam meet the face
validity?
3


1.6. Design of the thesis
The thesis is clearly organized into four main chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction of the thesis presents such basic information as the
rationales, the scopes, the aims, the methods, the research questions and the
design of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature review reviews theoretical backgrounds on evaluating a
test which includes these main points: the importance of testing in education,
language testing, major characteristics of a good test and achievement test.

Chapter 3: Methodology is the main part of the thesis showing the context of
the study and the detail results obtained from collected tests and findings in
response to the research questions.
Chapter 4: Conclusion offers conclusions of the thesis and practical
implications for the test improvement. In this part, the author also proposes
some suggestions for further research on the topic.

4


CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the theories and literature relevant to the topic. It
includes five main parts. Section 2.1. starts with different basic concepts of
testing and its importance, then the relationship between teaching, learning
and assessment are reviewed in Section 2.2. It is then followed by language
testing in Section 2.3. Next, in Section 2.4. Major characteristics of a good
language test is presented with a major focus on test validity, especially
construct, content and face validity. Finally, the achievement test and its types
are explored in Section 2.5.
2.1. Basic concepts of testing
An important part of each teaching and learning experience is testing
which is a tool to measure learners‟ ability. As Oller (1974) emphasized
testing as an instrument to ensure that students have a sense of competition
rather than to know how good their performance is and in which condition a
test can take place. It may create positive or negative attitudes toward
teaching and learning process. However, Heaton (1975) looks in different
way. Tests are considered as a mean of assessing the students‟ performance
and to motivate the students. Harrison (1983) notices that a test is a useful
tool to measure learners‟ ability in a certain situation especially in classroom.

Through testing, the teachers can make important decisions on the courses,
the syllabus, the course book, teachers and learners. Bachman (1990) asserts
that language tests can provide the means for more focus on the specific
assure of interest. With Brown (1994) insists that “a test, is a method of
measuring a person‟s ability or knowledge in a given area”. Therefore, in
short, testing is an effective mean of measuring and assessing students‟
language knowledge and skills. This is to evaluate learners‟ ability, suitable
5


teaching methods, teaching and learning materials. Through testing, the
administrators can make important decisions on the course, the syllabus, the
course book, teachers, learners and administration. Testing contributes a very
important part in teaching/learning process. It is the last stage in education
technology. Therefore, to take advantages of testing to measure the quality of
education, the administrators must build an essential and eligible testing
technology. This is to evaluate learners‟ ability, suitability of teaching
methods, teaching/learning materials and teaching/learning conditions and
suitability of set-up training objectives.
2.2. The relationship between teaching, learning and assessment.
In every teaching and learning experience, testing is a significant part.
To measure learners‟ ability, the best way we use is testing. It may create
positive or negative attitudes toward teaching and learning process. Testing
reflects teaching process and overall training objectives and aims. Through
testing, the administrator can make important decisions on the course, the
syllabus, the course book, teachers and learners.
Testing contributes a very significant part in teaching and learning
process. It can be the first, middle or the last stage in education technology.
Therefore, to take advantages of testing to measure the quality of education,
the administrators must build an essential and eligible testing technology.

This is to evaluate learners‟ ability, suitability of set-up training objectives
and aims.
2.2.1. Testing and teaching
Testing and learning are closely related because it is impossible to work
in either field without being constantly concerned with the others (Heaton,
1998:5). In other words, Heaton implied that teaching and learning provide a
great source of language materials for testing to make use of. In turn, testing
6


reinforces, encourages and perfect the teaching/learning process. Hughes
(1989: 2) summarizes the relationship as: “The proper relationship between
teaching and testing is surely that of partnership”. To explain this, Hughes
mentioned the effect of the vice versa relationship as backwash. If the testing
leaves good effect on teaching, the backwash is said beneficial. However,
there may be occasions when the teaching is good and appropriate and the
testing is not, we are then likely to suffer from harmful backwash. Testing
result will give information for both teachers and learners for their future
action, such as improving knowledge and skills, revising knowledge, or
applying a new teaching method. As Brown (2000) shared the idea that
testing is “what teacher measures or judge learners‟ competence all the time
and, ideally, learners measure and judge themselves”
Shortly speaking, it is undeniable that testing is an integrative part of
teaching and it can be separate from the program or from the course goal.
Testing has both positive and negative impact on teaching. Testing provides
the teacher with information on how effective his teaching has been, or the
teacher can use tests to diagnose his own efforts as well as those of his
students.
2.2.2. Testing and Learning
Testing is a tool to “pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the learned

abilities of the student” (Henning, 1987:1). That is, through testing, learners
can find out at which level they are standing and what difficulties they have
faced up with. As a result, they can adjust their learning; explore more
effective ways of learning. At the same time, the teacher can rely on the
results of tests to understand better learners‟ ability and then can improve his
methods of teaching or revise knowledge. Thus, Read (1982:2) said that “a
test can help both teachers and learners to clarify what the learners really need
7


to know”. It is clear that not only the teacher but also learners may achieve the
benefits through testing.
To sum up, tests can benefits students, teachers and even administrators
by confirming progress that has been made and showing how they can best
redirect their future efforts. In addition, good tests can sustain or enhance
class morale and aid learning.
Assessment as “a systematic approach to collecting information and
making references about the ability of a student or the quality or success of a
teaching course on the basis of a various sources of evidence” (Richard,
2009). Assessment is also a critical link for teaching and learning, which
plays an important role in the process of curriculum design and teaching
implementation. Hughes (1989) summarizes the relationship as “the proper
relationship between teaching and testing is surely that of partnership”. If the
testing leaves good effects on teaching, the effect of the vice versa
relationship is said beneficial. Richards, J.C and Nunan,D., (1990) refer to
what should be focus on assessment:
o

Insure reliability and validity

o

Provide for pre-test, while-test and post-test

o

Be criterion or standards references

o

Inform instruction

o

Serve as an accountability measure

o

Be adaptable to a variety of instructional environments

o

Accommodate learners with special needs

Shortly speaking, the relationship between teaching, learning and
assessment is always essential and it needs having the link between them. It is
undeniable that testing is an integrative part of teaching and it can be
separated from the program or from the course goals. Testing has both
8

positive and negative impact on teaching. Testing provides teachers how
effective their teaching has been.
2.2.3. Language Testing
Language testing is one of the forms of testing and it is also one form
of measurements. Its importance in English learning is reviewed as: “properly
made English tests can help create positive attitudes toward instruction by
giving students a sense of accomplishment and a feeling that the teacher‟s
evaluation of them matches what he has taught them. Good English tests also
help students learn the language by requiring them to study hard, emphasizing
course objectives, and showing them where they need to improve” (Davies,
1996:5)
Mc Namara (2000) presented three main roles of language testing,
which is applied not only in education but in other fields as well. Firstly,
language testing is considered as a key to succeed as language testing is a
decisive way in recruitment. Secondly, it serves educational goals. According
to Mc Namara, tests are used to place learners in a suitable course. The third
role of language testing is for the grant of research. Every researcher who
wishes to do a research on a language need to evaluate standard tests or to
design tests in that language.
From Henning‟s view, he suggested six purposes of language testing as
follow:
 Diagnosis and feedback: to explore strengths and weaknesses of the
learners
 Screening and selection: to assist in the decision of who should be
allowed to participate in a particular program of instruction
 Placement: to identify a particular performance level of the student and
to place him at an appropriate level of instruction
9

 Program evaluation: to provide information about the effectiveness of
programs of instruction
 Providing research criteria: to provide a standard of judgment in a
variety of other research context based on language test scores.
 Assessment of attitudes and socio-psychological differences: to
determine the nature, direction, and intensity of attitudes related to
language acquisition.
(Henning, 1987: 1)
2.3. Major characteristics of a good language test
In order to make a well-designed test, teachers have to take into
account a variety of factors such as the purpose of the test, the content of the
syllabus, the pupils‟ background, the goal of administrators. Moreover, test
characteristics play a very important role in constructing a good test.
The most important consideration in determining whether a test is good
or not is the use for which it is intended. That is to say, the most important
quality of a test is its usefulness. It is believed that test usefulness provides a
kind of metric by which test developers can evaluate not only the tests that
they develop and use, but also all aspects of test development and use.
Generally speaking, usefulness quality includes six components: reliability,
construct validity, authenticity, interactiveness, impact and practicality.
Bachman and Palmer (1996) (Harrison A. , 1983) consider the criteria
as qualities of test usefulness rather than individual factors. Their idea of
usefulness can be visually presented as in Figure 2.1 below:
Usefulness = reliability + construct validity + authenticity+ interactiveness +
impact + practicality

10

Test Usefulness
(Bachman & Palmer,1996)

Henning (1987) added more test characteristics and he summarized in
the form of table call “A checklist for Test Evaluation”. The checklist is for
rating of the adequacy of a test for any given purpose.

11


Table 2.1 A checklist for test evaluation
Name of test………………………………
Purpose Intended…………………………
Test characteristic

Rating (0 = highly inadequate, 10 = highly adequate

1. Validity

…………………………….

2. Difficulty

…………………………….

3. Reliability

…………………………….

4. Applicability

…………………………….

5. Relevance

…………………………….

6. Replicability

…………………………….

7. Interpretability

…………………………….

8. Economy

…………………………….

9. Availability

…………………………….

10.Acceptability

…………………………….
Total ………………………

Adapted from Henning, 1987: 14

To make a good test, teachers have to take considerations the various
factors such as the purposes of test, the content of the syllabus, the students‟
background and so on. Following a number of leading scholars in testing by
Harrison (1983) and Brown (1994), all the good tests have four typical
characteristics. First and foremost, testing need having reliability. Any good
test needs to have reliability. There are three aspects of reliability are used
taken into account. The first concern the consistency of scoring among
different makers. The second is the concern of the tester how to enhance the
12


agreement between makers. The third aspect of reliability is parallel-forms
reliability. Reliability is the first essential for any test (Davies, 1968).
Another feature of a test is discrimination that means its capacity to
discriminate among the different candidates and to reflect the differences in
the performances of the individuals in the group. Next, a test must be
practical. The most obvious practical considerations concerning the tests
overlook. Another practical concerns the answer sheets and the stationary
used. A final point concerns the presentation of the test paper itself. Finally,
validity of a test always plays an important role. The test must aim to provide
a true measure of the particular skill which it is supposed to measure.
(Hughes, 1989).
In term of content in any test, validity has five typical types. The first
one is content validity. A test is said to have content validity if its content
constitutes a representative sample of the language skills, structures with
which is meant to be concerned (Hughes, 1989). “Content validity seems an
almost and completely overlapping concept” (Kelly, 1978). The second one is
construct validity. With construct validity, a test can measure a theoretical
construct of trait. Each construct is developed to explain and organize
observed response consistencies (Anastasi, Quantifying Construct Validity:

Two Simple Measures. , 2003). Construct validity is seen as a matter of the
posterior statistical validation of whether a test has measured a construct that
has a reality independence of other constructs (Bachman,L.F and Palmer,
A.S, 1996). The third one is criterion- related validity. Information about
criterion relatedness- concurrent or predictive by itself so it is insufficient
evidence for validation (Bachman L. , 1990). The fifth one is face validity. A
test has face validity if it looks as if it measures what is supposed to measure.
(Anastasi A. , 1984). And the last one is backwash validity which refers to
13


how tests affect the learning on a students and the teaching of the subject, for
example, we can trust exams as a learning tool, the test preparation, the good
or bad comments to the student, the advice to the student during and after the
test, etc.
To summarize, in this chapter, I have presented a brief literature review
that sets the ground for the topic. Due to the limited time, I wish to focus only
on evaluating the validity of some chosen achievement test.
Test validity
It should be noticed that different scholars have thought of validity in
different ways. Heaton J., (1998:159) provided a simple but complete
definition of validity as “the validity of a test is the extent to which it
measures what it is supposed to measure”. Also Hughes claimed that “A test
is said to be valid if measures accurately what it is intended to measure”.
According to the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
(Association, 1985) that “Validity is the most important consideration in test
evaluation. The concept refers to the appropriateness, meaningfulness, and
usefulness of the specific inferences from the test scores. Test validation is the
process of accumulating evidence to support such inferences”. Thus, to be
valid, a test needs to assess learners‟ ability of a specific area that is proposed

on the basis of the aim of the test. For instance, a listening test with written
multiple- choice options may lack validity if the printed choices are so
difficult to read that the exam actually measures reading comprehension as
much as it does listening comprehension.
Validity is classified into these such subtypes as below:
 Content validity
This is a non-statistical type of validity that involvers “the systematic
examination of the test content to determine whether it covers a representative
14


sample of the behavior domain to be measured” (Anastasi A., & Urbina,
1997: 114). A test has content validity built into it by careful selection of
which items to include. Items are chosen so that they comply with the test
specification which is drawn up through a thorough examination of the
subject domain. Content validity is very important in evaluating the validity
of the test in terms of that “the greater a test‟s content validity, the more likely
it is to be an accurate measure of what is supposed to measure” (Hughes,
1989: 22).
 Construct validity
A test has construct validity if it demonstrates an association between
the test scores and the prediction of a theoretical trait. Intelligence tests are
one example of measurement instruments that should have construct validity.
Construct validity is viewed from a purely statistical perspective in much of
the recent American literature Bachman and Palmer (1981a). It is seen
principle as a matter of the posterior statistical validation of whether a test has
measured a construct that has a reality independence of other constructs.
To understand whether a piece of research has construct validity, three
steps should be followed. First, the theoretical relationships must be specified.
Second, the empirical relationships between the measures of the concepts

must be examined. Third, the empirical evidence must be interpreted in terms
of how it clarifies the construct validity of the particular measure being tested
(Carmines, E.G. & Zeller, R.A, 1991:23)
 Face validity
A test is said to have face validity if it looks as if it measures what it is
supposed to measure. Anastasi(1982: 136) pointed out that face validity is not
validity in technical sense, it refers, not to what the test actually measures, but
to what it appears superficially measure.
15


Face validity is very closely related to content validity. While content
validity depends on a theoretical basis for assuming if a test is assessing all
domains of a certain criterion, face validity relates to whether a test appears to
be good measure or not.
2.4. Achievement test and its types
All 45-minute English tests for year 11 students in a Vietnamese public
school are achievement tests, therefore, in this part, definitions as well as
kinds of achievement tests are presented.
According to Hughes (1990: 10), achievement tests are related to the
course, and are carried out after a course. Brown (1994:259) suggests that
achievement tests are related to classroom lessons, units. Moreover, Harrison
(1983:5) demonstrates that “an achievement test can look back a period of
learning”. In short, achievement tests are directly related to language courses
and they play a crucial role in the school programs.
There are exactly two main kinds of achievement tests. The first one is
final achievement tests which are administered at the end of a course. It is
used for measuring the achievement of the course as a whole. The second one
is progress achievement tests which are intended to measure the progress
students are making in order to plan future work. They are administered at the

end of a specific unit or lesson.

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is the main part of the study. It provides practical background for
the study and it is an overview of English teaching, learning and testing at a
Vietnamese public high school in the North East area of Vietnam. More
importantly, it presents data analysis of the chosen test and findings drawn
from the analysis.
3.1. English learning and teaching at a Vietnamese public high school in
the North East area of Vietnam.
3.1.1. Students and their backgrounds
Students who have been learning at a Vietnamese public high school in
the North East area of Vietnam are of different levels of English because of
their own background. It is common that those who are from gifted secondary
schools or from cities have greater ability of English than those from other
secondary schools or from villages where foreign language learning is not
paid much attention to. In addition, there are some students who have had
some years of learning English at centers before entering high school, some
have just learnt in text book at school, and others have never taken care of
English before. Moreover, their entry into high school is rather low because
English is not a main subject in the exam. As a result, their attitude towards
learning English is not very highly appreciated.
3.1.2. The English staffs
The English section of a Vietnamese public high school in the North
East area of Vietnam is a compulsory section with thirteen teachers. They
take over teaching both gifted classes and normal classes. All the English

teachers here have been well trained in Vietnam with six teachers have
graduated from universities of English and others from colleges, and none of
17