TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Statement of Authorship Acknowledgement Pages TABLE OF CONTENTS .1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS.4 LIST OF TABLES.5 LIST OF FIGURES.6 LIST OF CHARTS. Background of the research. Aims of the research. Significance of the research.
Scope of the research.5 Structure of the thesis.10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Review of the previous studies. Definition of testing. Purposes of testing.
Qualities of a good test. Subjective and Objective tests. Objective and subjective testing. The advantage of objective and subjective tests.
Testing reading comprehension. Definitions of testing reading comprehension.2 The nature of the reading skills. Types of reading comprehension tests. Relationship between teaching reading and testing reading comprehension 26 2.
Relationship between teaching and testing reading comprehension. Some general descriptions of teaching reading and testing reading comprehension at upper secondary schools in Vietnam. Multiple Choice test. Overview of multiple choice.2 Advantages and limitation of multiple Choice Tests.
General principles of constructing multiple choice items.Types of multiple choice reading tests. Backwash effects of multiple choice tests on learners. The situation of using Multiple Choice tests to develop student’s English reading skill at Phu Bai and Huong Thuy upper sedondary schools in Thua Thien Hue province in Viet Nam. Paper test examination.
Data collection procedure. Data analysis methods.44 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Results from questionnnaires. Results from questionnaires for teachers.
Teachers’ perceptions of using Multiple choice tests in current tendency of testing and assessment. Teachers’s perceptions of using multiple choice tests to develop student’s reading skill.Teachers’ practice of designing and using multiple choise reading tests. Advantages and difficulties in using multiple choice tests to develop students’ reading skill. Results from questionnaires for students.
Students’ attitudes and feelings of multiple choice tests and multiple choice reading tests. Students’ practice of multiple choice reading tests at school.Student’s difficulties in doing multiple choice reading tests. Results from paper tests examination. Results from interviews.
Results from students interviews. Results from teachers interviews.69 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of the findings. What are teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using multiple choice reading tests in English reading skill ?.
How multiple choice tests are designed and used to develop students’ English reading skill ?. For educational administrators.74 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS MOET : Ministry of Education and Training TOEFL : Test of English as a Foreign Language IELTS : International English Language Test System MCT : Multiple choice test MCRT : Multiple choice reading test MCQ : Multiple choice question N : Number of Informants % : Percent 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Methods of data collection and participants .2: Summary of the questionnaire components for teachers .3: Summary of the questionnaire components for students .1: The Reliability Statistics of the piloted questionnaires for teachers .2: The Reliability Statistics of the piloted questionnaires for students.3: The reliability of the questionnaires for teachers .4: The Reliability of the questionnaires for students .5: Mean score of teachers’ perception of MCT in testing and assessment.6: Mean score of teachers’ perception of Multiple choice reading tests .7: Mean score of the items from 5 to 9 ( Cluster 2) .8: Mean score of teachers, practice of designing and using MCRT .9: Types of MCQ used commonly to explore students’ reading ability .10: Mean score of the criteria of designing MCRT .11: Mean score of teachers’ difficulties when designing MCRT .12: Mean score of 4 clusters in questionnaires for teachers .13: Teachers’ perception and practice of MCRT at two schools.14: Students’ attitudes and feelings of MCT and MCRT.15: Mean score of how MCRT were used at two schools.16: Mean score of kinds of MCRT used at two schools.17: Mean score of students’ difficulties in doing MCRT.64 5 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: Percentage of teachers said that they often used MCRT in one period tests and semester tests .2: Percentage of teachers said that they often used MCRT for students of 3 grades 10,11 and 12.3: Mean score of teachers' ways of designing and choosing MCRT.4: Percentage of teachers considering the criterion of the limit of teaching syllabus when designing or choosing MCRT.5: Mean score of the advantages of using MCRT.6: Teachers’ perceptions and practice of MCRT at two schools.7: Percentage of students said that they were interested in doing MCRT.8: Percentage of students feeling satisfied with the results of MCRT.9: Mean score of skills or language areas developed with MCRT.62 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: The Testing Continuum 6 ABSTRACT This thesis aims to investigate teachers' and students’ perceptions and practice of multiple choice tests in English reading skill at two upper secondary schools in Huong Thuy town, TTHue province. The data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews conducted with teachers and students as well as the reviews of some sample tests currently used at two upper secondary schools in Huong Thuy town. The results show that most of the teachers and students were well aware of the importance of the use of multiple choice for the purpose of developing students’ English reading skill.
However, the teachers encountered many difficulties in designing and using multiple choice tests to develop students’ reading skills. The difficulties ranged from lack of techniques of designing kinds of multiple choice reading tests, students’ mixed ability, and lack of time for designing effective tests. In addition, the students included in this survey also got into troubles in doing these kinds of tests, which resulted in their unsatisfactory feelings and negative attitudes toward multiple choice reading tests. It is suggested that teachers need to consult many sources of materials about designing multiple choice reading tests so that they could design suitable ones that fit students’ level of proficiency as well as motivate students in doing these tests.
Moreover, teachers need to provide students with many different kinds of multiple choice tests and multiple choice questions to provide students with opportunities to practise and develop their English reading skills. Background of the research Language testing is obviously considered as an essential tool for developing language skills. Tests are officially used in many schools to test students' abilities such as finding out progress, encouraging students, discovering learning difficulties, selecting and placing students in the right level, and evaluating their proficiency. 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 study.
Simultaneously, testing helps teachers adjust their ways of teaching. For a long time, testing has been viewed as an independent process and as it is quite separately from teaching and learning, both theoretically and in practice. In fact, recent researchers have proved that, far from being divorced from each other, testing and teaching are closely interrelated. As a means of evaluation and measurement, testing helps teachers receive feedback from students and therefore, helps teachers adjust their ways of teaching.
According to Harrison (1986), testing is seen as a natural extension of classroom work, providing teachers and students with useful information that can serve each as a basis for improvement. In order to promote testing of learning students' language abilities, teachers should design many kinds of tests such as question and answer, true false, multiple – choice, cloze, and matching etc to evaluate their learning abilities as well as develop students’ reading skills. Among the tests mentioned earlier, Multiple Choice test (MCT) is one of the important tests which are officially used in upper secondary classes of English to assess students' reading proficiency as well as to develop students’ reading skills. Multiple Choice tests is the most common type of test that has been used to assess students’ English ability, especially in the international examinations like TOEF, IELTS or the national ones like the General Certificate of Secondary Education examination and the University Entrance Examination.
Being a teacher of English in Huong Thuy Town, I find that Multiple Choice tests have recently been used by many teachers with the aims of measuring the 8 achievement of students and the success of the teaching. Especially, the reading skills of students in these schools have also been tested and developed through multiple choice tests. However, it seems that students here are not interested in developing their reading skills and they appear poor at reading skills. From this fact, I am willing to find out the subjective and objective causes for their weaknesses in reading skills as well as the reality of using multiple choice tests to develop student’s reading skills in some upper secondary schools of Huong Thuy town.
Therefore, I wish to conduct this study to find out what teachers and students think about multiple choice tests and how the teachers use multiple choice tests in English reading skills at two upper secondary schools in Huong Thuy Town, Thua Thien Hue province. Aims of the research This project aims to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions about Multiple choice tests and how MC tests are designed and used to develop students’ English reading skills at Phu Bai and Huong Thuy High school in T. Simultaneously, this project is also a good chance for me to explore more effective ways of designing and using multiple choice tests to develop student’s reading skills. Significance of the research As mentioned earlier, this research will investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practice of using Multiple choice tests in English reading skills at two upper secondary schools in Huong Thuy town, T.
Hopefully, the research will bring about many benefits for designing and using Multiple choice tests in paper tests as well as examinations in Vietnam in general and at high schools in TT Hue in particular. Moreover, teachers have an overall perception about using Multiple choice tests to develop students’ reading skills. Scope of the research The research focuses on an investigation into teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practice of using Multiple choice tests to develop students’ English 9 reading ability at Phu Bai high school and Huong Thuy high school in T. The scope of the study is the teachers and learners in the 10th, 11th, 12th grade at the above – mentioned schools.
Although the project is necessarily limited in scope, the findings are likely to be generalized to similar contexts. Structure of the thesis There are five chapters in the thesis. Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter presents the background of the research, the aims of the research questions, the scope of the research and the structure of the research. Chapter 2: Literature review This chapter provides a fundamental overview of the theoretical concepts relevant to the research, and lead to rationale of the project.
Chapter 3: Research methodology Research methodology including instruments, the data collection methods, the subjects of the research and data analysis for this research are described in this chapter. Chapter 4: Findings and discussions Findings and discussions will be reported after data collections are analyzed clearly in this chapter. Chapter 5: Conclusions and Implications This chapter gives summary of the research, pedagogical implications and some suggestions for further research. 10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.
Review of previous studies This thesis deals with language testing in general and Multiple choice tests in English reading skills in particular. In reality, there are some studies which were related to language testing were carried out in our region and in the world. In 1993, Sliggins carried out a research on Classroom assessment-Key to effective education. Another study by Stough, Laura M.(1993) titled ―Research on Multiple Choice questions : Implication for Strategy Instruction ―.
In 2001, Cater conducted a survey on multiple choice tests commonly used in Hong Kong tertiary institution. In Viet Nam, there are also some studies which were carried out in 2002 related to testing ―An investigation of organizing Reading comprehensive tests of English in upper secondary schools in Hue‖ by Nguyen Thi Thuy Anh and ―Designing and using Objective tests in Hue upper secondary classes of English‖ by Le Thi Thanh Hai.