MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ PHAM THI DIEP AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND DIFFICULTIES IN TAKING ACHIEVEMENT TESTS AT TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL IN QUANG BINH PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ PHAM THI DIEP AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND DIFFICULTIES IN TAKING ACHIEVEMENT TESTS AT TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL IN QUANG BINH PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60. LE PHAM HOAI HUONG HUE, 2016 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------- PHẠM THỊ DIỆP NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH VÀ NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN HỌC SINH GẶP PHẢI KHI LÀM BÀI KIỂM TRA ĐỊNH KỲ Ở TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN HƯNG ĐẠO TỈNH QUẢNG BÌNH LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. LÊ PHẠM HOÀI HƯƠNG HUẾ, 2016 ii STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Pham Thi Diep December 18th, 2016 iii ABSTRACT Although achievement test is the most common test type used in language classrooms, its concept is not fully understood by high school students. Moreover, students usually have some difficulties in taking achievement tests. This research aims to investigate students’ perceptions towards achievement tests and the difficulties they face when taking achievement tests at Tran Hung Dao High School in Quang Binh province. The study employed both quantitive and qualitative research methods.
The data were collected from 80 students at Tran Hung Dao High School in Quang Binh province via the research instruments of questionnaire and interview. Besides, old test papers were also analyzed for the research data. The results showed that all students were well aware of the importance of achievement tests in language teaching and learning processes. However, certain difficulties such as psychological factors, linguistics factors and other factors were obstacles to high school students in taking achievement tests.
From the findings, the research has sought to provide practical implications for improving students’ perceptions towards achievement tests and overcoming obstacles they have when taking achievement tests. Limitations and suggestions for further researches were also included with a view to draw more persuasive and reliable conclusion on the implementation of achievement tests. iv In all sincerity, I wish to put on record my heart-felt thanks and sincere appreciation to the following people. First, I am indebted to my supervisor, Assoc.
Le Pham Hoai Huong, for her professional guidance and support. Without her help, I would have hardly successfully completed my thesis. Second, my gratefulness extended to all the other lecturers of the master of art program at Hue College Foreign Languages for their valuable suggestions in approving the initial proposal for this thesis, for their guidance and valuable evaluation and encouragements. Third, my sincere appreciation is extended to my leaders and all my colleagues at Tran Hung Dao High School in Quang Binh province for supporting me during the time I carried out this study.
Also, I would like to thank my students who participated in this study for their willingness to help me with questionnaire and interview. Finally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to my parents, husband, siblings and close friends. Their continuous supports and encouragement have been strong motivating forces for me during the time I wrote the thesis. v v TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTENTS Pages STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP.
v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. x LIST OF TABLE S. xi LIST OF CHART S.
Significance of the research. Scope of the research. Structure of the research. Review of related studies.
Theoretical background of testing. Definitions of testing. Purposes of language tests. Qualities of a good language test.
Criterion-related validity. Kinds of tests. Approaches for ATs. Types of ATs.
Construction of ATs. Students’ perceptions of ATs. Test taking strategies. Students’ difficulties in taking ATs.
The relationship between testing and teaching. Some general descriptions about language teaching and testing at THD HS. Instruments for data collection. Data collection procedures.
29 vii CHAPTER IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Analysis of old achievement tests. Students’ perceptions towards achievement tests.
Students’ perceptions towards the roles of achievement tests. Students’ perceptions towards the purposes of achievement tests. Students’ perceptions towards the effects of achievement tests. Students’ strategies to prepare for achievement tests.
Students’ strategies to review the lessons. Students’ strategies to do with some types of questions in the achievement tests. Students’ difficulties in taking achievement tests. Psychological factors affecting students in taking achievement tests.
Linguistic factors affecting students in taking achievement tests. Other factors affecting students in taking achievement tests. Correlations among three clusters. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS.
Summary of the findings. Students’ perceptions towards achievement tests. Students’ strategies to prepare for English achievement tests. Students’ difficulties in taking English achievement tests.
Correlations among three clusters. Contributions of the research. Pedagogical implications for educational administrators. Pedagogical implications for English teachers.
Pedagogical implications for students. 64 APPENDIX 1B: CÂU HỎI ĐIỀU TRA. 70 APPENDIX 2 B: CÂU HỎI PHỎNG VẤN. 71 APPENDIX 3 A: ACHIEVEMENT TESTS (TERM I - 2013-2014).
72 APPENDIX 3 B: ACHIEVEMENT TESTS (TERM II - 2013-2014). 75 APPENDIX 3 C: ACHIEVEMENT TESTS (TERM I - 2014-2015). 77 APPENDIX 3 D: ACHIEVEMENT TESTS (TERM II - 2014-2015). 81 APPENDIX 3 E: ACHIEVEMENT TESTS (TERM I - 2015-2016).
85 APPENDIX 3 F: ACHIEVEMENT TESTS (TERM II - 2015-2016). 89 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS - ATs/ AT : Achievement tests/ Achievement test - EFL : English as a Foreign Language - ETALP : English teaching and learning processes - QB : Quang Binh - THD HS : THD High School x LIST OF TABLES Table 4. Reliability statistics of questionnaire. Matrix of ATs of academic years 2013 – 2014, 2014- 2015 and 2015 – 2016.
Students’ perceptions towards the purposes of achievement tests. Students’ strategies to do with some types of questions in the achievement tests. Psychological factors affecting students in taking achievement tests. Linguistic factors affecting students in taking achievement tests.
Correlations among three clusters .47 xi LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4. Students’ perceptions towards the roles of achievement tests. Students’ perceptions towards the effects of achievement tests. Students’ strategies to review the lessons.
Other factors affecting students in taking achievement tests .45 xii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1. Research rationale Nowadays the world has seen a great number of changes in many fields varying from economy, politics, science, technology to education. Naturally such changes have directly impacted upon English teaching and learning in many countries over the world, including Vietnam. English has become an essential communicative tool between the peoples of different nations in most areas of our lives.
It is regarded as a link that strengthens the relationship among countries in the world. Being a global language, its various areas have been largely investigated, especially that of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning. From that, testing and assessment of the language have become an urgent problem during English teaching and learning process. Assessment is one of the cornerstones of the learning process” (Hatipoglu, 2010, p.
40) and testing is an effective tool for assessment. There are a lot of forms to assess students’ knowledge, results and their studying progress. Testing plays an important role in this continual cycle. Testing is one of the most important keys to determine if teaching objectives are reached, evaluate teaching methods, diagnose students’ needs or motivate students to study.
A test is considered as a valuable tool because it is seen as a natural extension of class work, providing students and teachers with useful information that serves as a basis for improvement. Therefore, when we carry out tests, we measure the performance of our students and the progress they make. Thanks to testing, teachers can evaluate exactly and satisfactorily the qualities of students. Besides, testing also helps teachers to receive feedbacks from students and therefore, teachers can adjust their ways or their teaching methods more suitably and exactly.
Tests are officially used in many schools to check students’ abilities such as finding out progress, encouraging students, discovering learning difficulties, selecting and placing students in the right level and evaluating their proficiency. 1 Especially, testing is also used to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses of the students in learning abilities as well as to know how well they progress in their studying. There are many test types that are used to measure language learners’ abilities such as aptitude tests, proficiency tests, placement tests, diagnostic tests and achievement tests (ATs) (Brown, 2004). However, besides placement tests which are frequently conducted at the beginning of each school year, ATs is the main test type that is mainly used to evaluate students’ learning after a semester at high schools in Vietnam.
ATs that are used to measure student’s achievement and progression in a specific subject or topic over a set period of time. The most popular purpose of an achievement test (AT) is to evaluate a student’s ability in order to provide them with the most fitting degree of support in terms of their education in a particular subject area. In other words, it is said that ATs play an important role in language teaching and learning processes. According to the curriculum of the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, at Tran Hung Dao High School (THD HS), there are some ATs for each academic year.
We also use ATs as one of some important means to evaluate our students’ learning results. However, in reality, many students at my school are not aware of the importance of ATs in their learning process and have difficulties in knowing how to get good results in ATs. They seem to be obliged to take these tests so they do the test without their all efforts. The above reality is the main motivation which helps me to decide to carry out the research: “An investigation into students’ perceptions and difficulties in taking achievement tests at Tran Hung Dao High School in Quang Binh province”.
I thus wish to conduct this research to find out what students think about ATs, how they prepare for the ATs and what difficulties they have to do effective ATs to measure their learning outcome. In other words, I would like to help my students raise their awareness of the importance of ATs; know how to prepare for ATs and how to overcome the difficulties in taking ATs to get better results in English learning process. Research objectives This research aims to examine and discuss students’ perceptions towards ATs at THD HS in QB province. It also considers and analyzes what difficulties students are facing in taking ATs.
To achieve the main purpose, the following specific objectives have been set to help students: - How to improve students’ awareness of the students towards the importance of ATs in English teaching and learning processes (ETALP). - How to prepare for the ATs. - How to overcome the difficulties and the factors affecting taking students’s ATs. Research questions To achieve the objectives of the research, the research is going to find out the answers to the following questions: 1.